MAM
All pride, no prejudice, or just marketing metrics?
MUMBAI: As June’s rainbow wave floods timelines, store shelves and corporate logos alike, a sharper question emerges: are brands and agencies walking the talk on LGBTQ+ inclusion, or just flashing their colours for clicks?
A quick glance across campaigns, policies and creative briefs shows a spectrum—from genuine transformation to performative wokeness. And some of India’s most visible brand voices are ready to call it like it is.
From “We support Pride” to “We don’t know sh!t”
Vanaja Pillai, President, 22feet Tribal Worldwide & Head – Inclusion & Impact, Omnicom Advertising Group India, leads with candour. “We believe real change happens when people can show up with curiosity, ask questions, and listen without fear,” she says. Their internal campaign ‘We Don’t Know Sh!t’ ditches moral high ground for messy, human conversations—and Pride is just one point in a year-round learning curve.
This year, their Pride initiative is themed ‘Words Build Worlds’, a linguistic lens on how inclusive language can shift narratives and erase bias. Events like Queerically Speaking, Postcards from Pride and even a queer stand-up showcase underscore that allyship doesn’t need a corporate brief—it needs honesty and a mic.
Beauty with backbone
At Joy Personal Care, CMO Poulomi Roy doesn’t just market moisturiser. “Inclusivity isn’t seasonal. It’s a mindset,” she says. The brand has walked the walk with a campaign starring Sushant Divgikar—not as a Pride-month gimmick, but as part of a consistent narrative.
They’ve distributed over 100,000 personal care kits to transgender individuals and sex workers, not under CSR, but baked into their brand DNA. “Representation is not a checkbox for us,” Roy insists. And it shows. From acid attack survivors to plus-sized models, their campaigns are as inclusive behind the scenes as they are on screen.
Her advice to the industry? “Tokenism is easy. But real impact comes when brands shift the lens from visibility to lived experience.”
Strategy with substance
Sonica Aron, founder of Marching Sheep, believes intent is everything. “Pride isn’t about logos in rainbow hues, it’s about policies, partnerships, and presence—every single day.”
She sees progress in brands that ditch the June-only visibility playbook. “The best campaigns come from rooms where queer folks are not just featured, but decision-makers. That’s when messaging hits home,” says Aron.
For Aron, real inclusion also looks like safe workplaces, inclusive benefits, and storytelling that avoids the tired tropes. “Less punchline, more person,” she sums up.
Campaigns with commitment
Over at White Rivers Media, senior vice president, business strategy & growth, Mitchelle Rozario Jansen sees the shift. “There’s a rise in year-round brand commitment—beyond just posting a rainbow flag,” she says. The agency now partners directly with queer creators to ensure campaigns don’t just represent, but resonate.
While not every brand is there yet, she’s optimistic. “Today, queer characters aren’t just shown as ‘different’ or comic relief. More stories are about them as people, parents, co-workers and friends. And that’s the real shift.”
What does the data actually say?
The numbers don’t lie, especially when it comes to Gen Z. “Younger consumers back brands that back values,” says Roy. “Inclusion drives deeper emotional connections and loyalty that goes beyond seasonal sales.”
Small audiences? Maybe. But the engagement? “Genuine. Vocal. Long-lasting,” she comments.
Social Panga founder Gaurav Arora, believes the brands that walk the talk are cashing in where it counts: loyalty, love, and repeat purchases.
Surveys show 68 per cent of Gen Z and 55 per cent of millennials stick with brands that demonstrate genuine LGBTQ+ inclusion. Companies that offer inclusive benefits, pronoun options, and support queer employee groups have seen a 12–15 per cent jump in repeat business. That’s not just goodwill—it’s growth.
Inside the evolution of allyship
“Allyship is now the baseline,” says Arora. “These young consumers expect to see queer inclusion across HR, campaigns, partnerships—even product design.”
He further says that many brands are stepping up. Gone are the days of token rainbow logos in June. Today’s leaders are offering gender-neutral product lines, non-discrimination clauses, and year-round collaborations with LGBTQ+ organisations. They’re co-creating content with queer voices, embedding representation in hiring and storytelling, and hosting real conversations—not just reels.
Meanwhile, rainbow-washing is getting called out fast. “Seasonal ads with no follow-through? Bright in June, forgotten by July,” Arora concludes.
So, are Indian brands truly embracing inclusivity—or still riding the rainbow wave? It’s a bit of both. The glitter is still there, but the groundwork is growing. When campaigns move from optics to action, when hiring shifts from compliance to culture, and when queer stories are told with nuance, not novelty, that’s when the real change happens.
Until then, the rainbow will remain both a symbol and a litmus test.
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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