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Goafest 2015 unveils speakers for knowledge seminars

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MUMBAI: In the tenth year of one of India’s premier advertising festival- Goafest, the celebration is poised to get bigger and better. 

 

The festival, which will take place at the Grand Hyatt, Bambolim in Goa from 9-11 April, will continue being a three day festival, with three award nights, and with the categories remaining more or less the same, like last year.

 

Hosted by the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) and the Advertising Club, the event is known to be a hub of learning. “We have, year on year, expanded the width of our speakers, and we will continue doing that,” said Goafest chairman and AAAI vice president Nakul Chopra, while revealing the first list of speakers for this year’s event. 

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The speakers for the knowledge seminar include: Dentsu Aegis Network Asia Pacific chief creative officer Ted Lim, 180 Amsterdam president and creative officer Alan Moseley, Facebook APAC region head of agency Neil Stewart, ZenithOptimedia worldwide strategic marketing officer Guy Abrahams and author and mythologist Devdutt Pattanik.  

 

“Further list of speakers will be announced in a week or so,” informed Percept director Ajay Chandwani.

 

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“Goafest 2015 will have a great mix of speakers. Our effort is to get the 2500 plus participants to listen to and interact with the best, the world has to offer. As in the previous years, we will have stimulating Q&A sessions moderated by senior marketing professionals,” said AAAI president MG Parameswaran.

 

Goafest has been skewed towards the youth since its inception. “Fifty per cent of the people attending are under the age of 30 years and we continue to encourage them to come for the three day festival,” added Chopra. 

 

Explaining the flow of events during Goafest, Chopra informed that while the Advertising Conclave will be held on day one, the knowledge seminars will take place on the second and third day. 

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“There will be a Leadership Summit on 11 April, which will bring together best minds in the field of advertising, communications and marketing industry to discuss, debate, interact, offer thoughts and experiences, share ideas and questions on the industry,” he informed, adding that the programmes will also have a series of presentations from leaders in their respective fields and panel debates. 

 

Goafest 2015 will also see the introduction of Youth Labs for young delegates. “These Youth Labs will have a separate Creative Lab and Media Lab. The aim of these Youth Labs will be to provide a platform for youngsters to interact with the stalwarts of the industry and get them to sharpen and hone their skills,” said Chopra. 

 

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The tenth year celebration will be grander, and in keeping with this, the organizers have roped in professionals to host the award ceremonies. “You will see a huge difference in the awards ceremony as compared to the previous year,” opined Parameswaran. 

 

As for the awards and awards category, not much has changed from the previous year. “The feedback that we got about the previous edition of Goafest was that it was spot on, and so we decided to not bring in too many changes in the awards this year,” informed Chandwani.  

 

The organising committee has reinstated Radio Craft award this year, which was removed in the previous edition. According to Chandwani, digital is the most evolving category and thus it is this category which sees the maximum changes every year. “But this year, only a few categories have been merged, everything else remains unchanged,” informed Chandwani.

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The award shows for various verticals will be held on:

 

9 April: Media and Publisher Abby Awards

 

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10 April: Design, Direct, Brand activation and promotion, Public Relations, Out of Home and Ambient Media, Print Craft, Branded Content and Entertainment and Broadcaster Abby Awards

 

11 April: Digital & Mobile, Radio, Radio Craft, Print, Film, Film Craft and Integrated Advertising Abby Awards

 

Talking about the purpose of the event, Parameswaran said that it was to bring pride and belongingness to the industry. “Through this, we wanted to inspire the young people to stay in the advertising industry and grow it,” he added. 

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While every year, the festival has a theme, the organising committee is calling this year as the ’10 years of Goafest.’

 

The big question that is currently hovering around the fest is if the big names like Ogilvy & Mather and McCann Worldgroup among others will participate in this edition of Goafest. When quizzed on their participation, Chopra said, “We are talking to the agencies. Our job is to put up a good show and so we are in conversation with everyone. Now whether they participate or not, is up to them.” 

 

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It can be noted that in 2014, both Oglivy & Mather and McCann Worldgroup along with Creativeland Asia, BBDO, Leo Burnett and Grey did not participate in the Creative Abbies, following controversies. 

 

Controversies aside, the organisers, controversies are expecting a great turnout in this season. “Last year 275 companies had sent entries and 240 companies had sent delegates,” informed Chandwani. 

MAM

Nielsen launches co-viewing pilot to sharpen TV measurement

Super Bowl pilot to refine how shared TV audiences are counted

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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.

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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.

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Delhivery chairman Deepak Kapoor, independent director Saugata Gupta quit board

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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.

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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.

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MAM

Meta appoints Anuvrat Rao as APAC head of commerce partnerships

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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.

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