MAM
A must-read ad & marketing book
Mumbai: Political advertising and marketing case studies might be a bit of a bore for many. But once you pick up ‘Don’t Forget 2004 – Advertising secrets of an impossible ELECTION VICTORY’ by Jayshree M Sundar and start flipping through its pages, you can’t put it down. Written in the manner of a fast-paced diary and personal narrative, it keeps you thirsting for more, and it hardly feels like you are reading. The pages flip by so fast, and before you know it, you are at the end of the book, a lot richer in your understanding of what politicians think like, how ad agency executives can interact with them, and what it takes to draw up a winning election strategy and brand campaign.
Jayshree should know. The senior advertising executive was heading the Delhi office of Leo Burnett India (once Chaitra Advertising founded by Walter Saldanha) when she got a call from Congress (I)’s senior leader Salman Khurshid’s office. The voice at the other end informed her that her agency was in the running to help the Congress (I) as it sought to make a comeback in the 2004 hustings at the Centre. The party had been out of power for more than a decade and a fierce opposition BJP was riding high with top media expecting it to win again by a thumping margin.
Some of us may have a recollection of the savage campaign by Saatchi & Saatchi titled “Labour is not working” which swept Margaret Thatcher’s conservatives to power in 1979. Jayshree, along with her team, took a similar tack, working against impossible deadlines for a client which had no idea about the political marketing direction it should take. What made it even more challenging was that the BJP was looking smug as hell, splurging top dollar on ads all over the nation talking about how India was shining.
The Congress (I) mandarins provided no brief and they had limited budgets. Jayshree and her team had to come up with the communication that would position the Congress (I) right and yet show up the failures of the outgoing BJP government. Agency executives had to work and communicate with political heavyweights like Sonia Gandhi, Salman Khurshid, Ambika Soni, Jairam Ramesh, Ahmed Patel, Rahul, and Priyanka Gandhi, Motilal Vora – folks who commandeered a lot of respect, and whom they had only seen on TV.
Through the book, you find out how she and the agency’s creatives pivoted to get quick answers through cheap and cheerful primary and secondary research. That and the fact that it approached the assignment as a regular brand campaign helped it come up with a pitch presentation that was bought by the steeped-in-the-old-ways-of-working Congress (I) senior leaders. The riposte to BJP’s India Shining slogan was “Aam aadmi ko kya mila?” “Congress Ka Haath aam aadmi ke Saath” and addressed the heartlands of India, against the former which was more focused on the urban Indian. The B&W visuals featured farmers, unemployed youth, the middle class and children, women as against the BJP’s well-dressed urban Indians.
The book details how the agency came up with the four phases of the campaign, the steps it took to maintain utmost secrecy while creating the campaign, and later when ads and TVCs were released to publications and TV channels in various languages all over the country.
Jayshree’s effort is not just all about words; she has peppered the book with advertising artwork which made it to the newspapers over the various phases of the campaign.
The Leo Burnett team’s communication and marketing strategy did work well if you recollect. Despite the BJP’s bigger advertising war chest, it and its allies managed to retain only 185 seats (1999 count 298). The Congress (I) however celebrated as it individually captured 145 seats (against 112 seats in 1999) and 220 seats (as against 135 in 1999) with its allies. It of course came to power, and the rest they say is history.
‘Don’t Forget 2004’ is a must-read for students and practitioners of marketing and advertising as well as those in the political ranks, given that there is very limited literature available on political advertising. It is rich in detailing the learnings the agency had while working on the Congress (I) campaign. Be sure to pick up a copy.
(Don’t Forget 2004- Advertising secrets of an impossible ELECTION VICTORY – Jayshree M Sundar, pp284, publisher Vitasta Publishing, Rs 495)
You can buy it on Amazon too by clicking on this link: https://www.amazon.in/-/hi/Jayshree-M-Sundar/dp/9390961289
MAM
Nielsen launches co-viewing pilot to sharpen TV measurement
Super Bowl pilot to refine how shared TV audiences are counted
MUMBAI: Nielsen is taking a fresh stab at one of television’s oldest blind spots: how many people are actually watching the same screen. The audience-measurement giant on February 4 unveiled a co-viewing pilot that uses wearable devices to better capture shared viewing, starting with America’s biggest broadcast stage.
The trial begins with Super Bowl LX on NBC on February 8, 2026, before extending to other high-profile live sports and entertainment events in the first half of the year. The goal is simple but commercially potent: count viewers more accurately, especially during live spectacles that pull families and friends to one screen.
The new approach leans on Nielsen’s proprietary wearable meters, wrist-worn devices that resemble smartwatches. These passively capture audio signatures from TV content, logging exposure to shows, films and live events without requiring viewers to sign in or self-report. In theory, fewer clicks, fewer lapses, better data.
Karthik Rao, Nielsen’s ceo, cast the move as part of a broader measurement push. He said the company’s task is to keep pushing accuracy as clients invest heavily in live programming that draws mass audiences. The co-viewing pilot, he added, builds on upgrades such as Big Data + Panel measurement, out-of-home expansion, live-streaming metrics and wearable-based tracking.
Co-viewing is not new territory for Nielsen, which has long tried to estimate how many people sit before a single set. What is new is the heavier integration of wearables and passive detection to reduce reliance on active inputs from panel homes.
For now, the pilot comes with caveats. Co-viewing estimates from the trial will not be folded into Nielsen’s Big Data + Panel ratings, which remain the industry’s trading currency. Instead, pilot findings will be shared with clients a few weeks after final Big Data + Panel ratings are delivered. Clients may disclose those findings publicly.
More impact data will follow later this year. Full integration into Nielsen’s marketing-intelligence suite is slated as a longer-term play, with a target of bringing co-viewing into currency measurement for the 2026–2027 season. This is only phase one, with further co-viewing enhancements planned beyond 2026 and additional timelines to be announced.
The push fits a wider pattern. Nielsen has in recent years expanded big-data integration, adopted first-party data for live-streaming measurement and broadened out-of-home tracking. It also positions itself as the reference point for streaming metrics through products such as The Gauge and the Nielsen Streaming Top 10.
In a market where billions of ad dollars hinge on decimal points, counting who is in the room matters. If Nielsen can pin down shared viewing, the humble sofa could become prime measurement real estate. The race to count every eyeball just found a new wrist to watch.
Brands
Delhivery chairman Deepak Kapoor, independent director Saugata Gupta quit board
Gurugram: Delhivery’s boardroom is being reset. Deepak Kapoor, chairman and independent director, has resigned with effect from April 1 as part of a planned board reconstitution, the logistics company said in an exchange filing. Saugata Gupta, managing director and chief executive of FMCG major Marico and an independent director on Delhivery’s board, has also stepped down.
Kapoor exits after an eight-year stint that included steering the company through its 2022 stock-market debut, a period that saw Delhivery transform from a venture-backed upstart into one of India’s most visible logistics platforms. Gupta, who joined the board in 2021, departs alongside him, marking a simultaneous clearing of two senior independent seats.
“Deepak and Saugata have been instrumental in our process of recognising the need for and enabling the reconstitution of the board of directors in line with our ambitious next phase of growth,” said Sahil Barua, managing director and chief executive, Delhivery. The statement frames the exits less as departures and more as deliberate succession, a boardroom shuffle timed to the company’s evolving scale and strategy.
The resignations arrive amid broader governance recalibration. In 2025, Delhivery appointed Emcure Pharmaceuticals whole-time director Namita Thapar, PB Fintech founder and chairman Yashish Dahiya, and IIM Bangalore faculty member Padmini Srinivasan as independent directors, signalling a tilt towards consumer, fintech and academic expertise at the board level.
Kapoor’s tenure spanned Delhivery’s most defining years, rapid network expansion, public listing and the push towards profitability in a bruising logistics market. Gupta’s presence brought FMCG and brand-scale perspective during a period when ecommerce volumes and last-mile delivery economics were being rewritten.
The twin exits, effective from the new financial year, underscore a familiar corporate rhythm: founders consolidate, veterans rotate out, and fresh voices are ushered in to script the next chapter. In India’s hyper-competitive logistics race, even the boardroom does not stand still.
MAM
Meta appoints Anuvrat Rao as APAC head of commerce partnerships
At Locofy.ai, Rao helped convert a three-year free beta into a paid engine, clocking 1,000 subscribers and 15 enterprise clients within ten days of launch in September 2024. The low-code startup, backed by Accel and top tech founders, is famed for turning designs into production-ready code using proprietary large design models.
Before that, Rao founded generative AI venture 1Bstories, which was acquired by creative AI platform Laetro in mid-2024, where he briefly served as managing director for APAC. Alongside operating roles, he has been an active investor and advisor since 2020, backing startups such as BotMD, Muxy, Creator plus, Intellect, Sealed and CricFlex through a creator-economy-led thesis.
Rao spent over eight years at Google, holding senior partnership roles across search, assistant, chrome, web and YouTube in APAC, and earlier cut his teeth in strategy consulting at OC&C in London and investment finance at W. P. Carey in Europe and the US.
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