MAM

Creative hotshop a.m. rises

Published

13 years ago

July 20, 2013

MUMBAI: “It‘s always tough starting something new. Once you strip yourself off your big-agency visiting card and designation, you have to get used to doing everything for yourself – all the things you took for granted in a big, established setup. We had also been told that when one does this, one automatically loses half of one‘s friends and contacts. But we‘ve been incredibly lucky in this regard – people who‘ve worked with us and trusted us in our old roles, continue to extend that support even today.”

That’s Nilesh Vaidya in case you don’t know. Vaidya, a former executive creative director with Rediffusion Y&R, took the entrepreneurial plunge in April this year, setting up a creative business solutions agency called a.m. said a.m. director Nilesh Vaidya. He did not do alone – he roped in Nokia mobile payments marketing director Shreepad Shinde to take the ride with him. The duo has set up office in the Goregaon suburb of Mumbai and has a staff of eight currently. And plans are being to drawn up to aggressively expand to Gurgaon and Bangalore in just six months.

Both have immense pedigree. They worked together in advertising 15 years ago before parting ways to follow their individual career graphs. While Shinde hopped over to the client‘s side, and rose to become director – marketing at Nokia Mobile Payments, Vaidya stayed rooted in advertising, rising to head Rediffusion Y&R’s Mumbai creative team, handling some premier accounts like eTata Motors, Sugar Free and Sahara Q Shop. Prior to that he had a stint with Euro RSCG, where he led with some memorable work on Dainik Bhaskar and HDFC Bank. Shinde, on the other hand, started out in advertising and went on to lead marketing and product functions in organisations like HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank.

Nilesh Vaidya…

Both Vaidya and Shinde believe that they want to build an organisation based on their values and beliefs, for the purpose of doing clutter-breaking work and building enduring relationships with clients.

Says Vaidya ,“It‘s been three months since Shreepad and I came together to form a.m. Actually, Shreepad had started the agency a few months before under another identity, and we had been talking about getting together. We decided in February. I put in my papers at Rediffusion, and became a part of a.m. in the first week of April. After spending 20 and 19 years in our respective fields, both Shreepad and I felt ready to take the next big step, take on the entrepreneurial challenge. We had touched base after a 15 year gap but our philosophies and goals matched so perfectly that doing business together seemed the logical thing to do.”

Shinde throws some light on what he believes sets am apart from other agencies. Says the soft-spoken former telecom executive: “Normally, when we talk about ad agencies, we talk about providing creative solutions, strategy, planning etc. I have been a client for years and agencies generally build a strategy born from a business objective to provide a communication model. With a.m., we have a holistic approach to drive the business, as we position ourselves as their business partner. Over here we will understand the distribution margin, how is the competition in the market, the selling price in the market, their loyalty programme for their dealers and distributors among many other things. We are looking at providing a holistic approach by stepping into our clients shoes and understanding the business.”

… and Shreepad Shinde strongly believe in building enduring relationships with clients

Consisting of a team of five creatives, a.m., the duo is offering radio, print, digital and online and offline services to clients and has handled projects for Reliance Life Insurance, Fiat Chrysler, Bajaj Auto, ACK Media (on the National Geographic brand), Intelligentia IT Solutions, Classic Marble Company, Rommel Developers and Health Assure.

Both Vaidya and Shinde seemed to concur that being lean and mean on the human resources front gives you the sheen. “We‘re both very prudent people. We believe in getting business first, adding people and overheads later. And that‘s the way a.m. will always be run,” pipe up both of them at same time. “The gold will always come before the glitter. Of course, the ambition is to become really big and famous.. .to be known as a true marketing and communications partner, working as an extension of the client‘s marketing arm. The vision is to do work that‘s so strategically and creatively perfect, it produces results beyond a client‘s expectations. We‘d like to grow by growing the brands we handle.”

That’s an Abby winning speech if ever there was one!

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MAM

Nielsen launches co-viewing pilot to sharpen TV measurement

Super Bowl pilot to refine how shared TV audiences are counted

Published

3 days ago

February 4, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

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

Published

1 week ago

January 31, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

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

Published

1 week ago

January 31, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

SINGAPORE: Anuvrat Rao has taken charge as APAC head of commerce and signals partnerships at Meta, steering monetisation deals across Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp from Singapore. The former Google executive, known for launching Google Assistant, PWAs, AMP and Firebase across Asia-Pacific, steps into the role after a high-growth stint as chief business officer at Locofy.ai.

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.