MAM

Goafest 2018 ends with anecdotes about advertising, creativity

Published

8 years ago

April 9, 2018

GOA: The third day of advertising mega event Goafest 2018 saw the industry get down to business with talks on advertising, creativity and marketing.

The day took off with Facebook head of creative shop, APAC Rapha Vasconcellos, who talked about building meaningful social interactions and not just likes and comments. He mentioned that brands should focus on telling stories and the challenge is to use social media as a platform to build meaningful interactions. He went on to elaborate how brands are using various social media features to build these interactions and soon ‘stories’ as a feature will be bigger than people’s feeds. The jump from apps and platforms to stories has begun.

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Vasconcellos also noted that groups are gaining momentum since people have found them to be meaningful. Whenever people need to take important decisions, it is these groups they turn to, some containing influencers. Brands can and do use these points of connections. He ended the session with the simple message, “The way to build to build your idea is to build it differently.”

Following the insightful session by Vasconcellos was the knowledge seminar by Forsman & Bodenfors art director Samuel Akesson who turned around the entire concept of advertising. Forsman & Bodenfors, an agency famous for its world-renowned and highly acclaimed campaigns like Volvo Trucks – The Epic Split and Nike #Breaking2, doesn’t have any hierarchy and works as a collaborative team. On how the unique agency functions, Akesson simply said, “What we do is ‘human’ mostly. Perhaps there’s a lack of humanity in advertising, which is why sometimes advertising is bad at making people feel anything.”

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The day also saw India’s ace tennis player Sania Mirza talk about feminism, her journey and the need to buck up for a long battle since, even today, female athletes question their pay.

Then came Genius Steals co-founder Rosie Yakob who spoke about a range of topics from living as a traveller for the past five years, solving business problems creatively, breaking the myth of the lone genius, how to be a Scenius, feminism, breaking the gender pay-gap and a host of other topics. In her opinion, the first step in being a Scenius is mutual respect and appreciation, followed by other important aspects such as sharing knowledge, giving credit to all involved, seeking out the weird and the wild, etc. She spoke about brands such as Goldieblox which are breaking stereotypes and promoting young girls to take an early interest in technology.

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Adolescent director Amelia Conway is a 15-year-old content creator who works on multi-million dollar projects with brands such as Netflix. Conway spoke about how with the advent of social media, the youth and gen Z had a choice to see the content they want. She focussed on how ageism shouldn’t be a hindrance as the best person to understand a 15-year-old is someone of the same age. Speaking about content that works with the youth she said, “There’s a fine difference between content that is honest and that’s not. Genuinity is very important to kids, youth and adolescents.” Most advertisers think that if they put millions of dollars on a clever idea, that some adults packed in a room admire, it will work for adolescents. But it doesn’t. What does work is content that is entertaining, empowering and that collaborates with them. She added that the idea that age or gender determines your capabilities has to be confronted to be changed.

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The advertising sessions for Goafest 2018 were concluded by CJ K-Valley chief creative officer Wain Choi who discussed knowing consumers as human beings, a people-first technique for brands. Wain’s session was all about learning from experience as he shared bodies of work he had done for brands such as Samsung, Burger King and Uniqlo. He spoke to the extent that technology for technology’s sake is meaningless, it should mean something for the consumer. Whether it’s knowing your customers as people, solving problems for them or even using simple ideas for innovation, brands need to be more human.

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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

4 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.