Brands

ITC driving efforts to build purpose-led brands: Sanjiv Puri

Published

3 years ago

August 12, 2023

Mumbai: ITC believes that brands must serve a larger societal purpose and leverage the substantial market interventions to positively influence social change. This belief drives our efforts to build purpose-led brands. Several of ITC’s brands lead purposeful initiatives in areas that can make a meaningful difference. The ‘Mangaldeep’ brand is empanelling visually impaired persons as fragrance testers, fostering a life of dignity and hope. ‘Fiama’ espouses the cause of addressing mental health issues. ‘Vivel’ champions women’s empowerment. The ‘Savlon Swasth India’ programme which orchestrates hygiene behaviour, has covered over 8,000 schools reaching out to over 2 million students. ‘Classmate All Rounder’ programme aims at holistic skill development, covering over 3,00,000 school students. ‘YiPPee!’s Terra programme upcycles post-consumer plastic wrapper waste into attractive laptop sleeves, tote bags and so on.

ITC combines agile competitiveness with environmental sustainability and livelihood generation

Corporates have both an economic and a social purpose. Hence, the path to future progress necessitates business strategies that not only address such uncertainties but also the underlying fault-lines of social inequity and environmental threats. This realisation led ITC to embrace a paradigm of responsible competitiveness, that combines agile competitiveness with environmental sustainability and livelihood generation.

ITC continues its stellar contribution to environmental and social capital as we complete 20 years of sustainability reporting. You will draw immense pride that 12 of your company’s hotels and the data centre “ITC Sankhya” became the first in the world to be certified LEED Zero Carbon, with two hotels also receiving the LEED Zero Water distinction. ITC’s businesses and value chains today support over six million livelihoods. The footprint of your company’s CSR projects spans over 300 districts in 27 States/Union Territories and reaches out to over 7.5 million people of which nearly 5 million are women. Several more milestones in sustainability performance have been crossed, which I will detail in a subsequent section.

ITC’s two-horizon approach – strengthening current livelihoods and building capabilities for better tomorrow

Over the years, ITC has implemented an impactful Social Investments Programme to catalyse gainful livelihood opportunities for rural communities through a two-horizon approach. Horizon-1 focuses on strengthening current livelihoods of communities, primarily in agriculture and allied sectors whilst Horizon-2 builds capabilities for a better tomorrow. Interventions in areas such as primary education, vocational training, women empowerment, healthcare and others have been progressively scaled up over the years with a transformative impact on the ground. Pursuing our diversity and inclusion goals, it is heartening that many of our state-of-the-art ICMLs employ a majority of women, ranging between 50-75 per cent of the total workforce.

ITC sustained its ‘AA’ rating by MSCI-ESG for the fifth consecutive year reinforcing its leadership amongst peers. It is a matter of pride that our innovative initiatives have enabled ITC to be the only company of its size to achieve the global environmental distinction of being carbon, water and solid waste recycling positive for over 18, 21 and 16 years respectively.

In today’s context it is evident that any strategy, which is devoid of addressing the growing societal challenges will be outdated, irrelevant and bound to be short-lived. It is for this reason that ITC has made sustainable and inclusive growth the bedrock of its corporate strategy, crafting innovative business models that work towards building economic, environmental and social capital as a unified approach.

Brands

Netflix India names Rekha Rane director of films and series marketing

Streaming giant bets on a seasoned marketer who helped build Amazon and Netflix into household names

Published

1 month ago

February 9, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: Netflix has put a proven brand builder at the helm of its films and series marketing in India, naming Rekha Rane as director in a move that signals sharper focus on audience growth and cultural cut-through in one of its most hotly contested markets.

Rane steps into the role after seven years at Netflix, where she has quietly shaped how the platform sells stories to India. Her latest promotion, effective February 2026, crowns a run that spans brand, slate and product marketing across originals, licensed content and new verticals such as games.

A strategic marketing and communications professional with roughly 15 years’ experience, Rane has spent much of her career building technology-led consumer businesses and new categories, notably e-commerce and subscription video on demand. She was part of the early push that introduced Amazon.in, Prime Video and Netflix to Indian homes, then helped turn them into everyday brands.

At Netflix, she most recently served as head of brand and slate marketing for India from March 2024 to February 2026, leading teams across media and marketing for global and local content portfolios. Before that, as manager for original films and series marketing, she led IP creation and go-to-market strategy for titles including Guns and Gulaabs, Kaala Paani, The Railway Men* and The Great Indian Kapil Show, spanning both binge and weekly-release formats.

Her earlier Netflix roles covered product discovery and promotion in India and integrated campaign strategy to drive conversations around the content slate, product awareness and brand-equity metrics.

Before Netflix, Rane logged more than three years at Amazon in brand marketing roles in Bengaluru. There she handled national and regional campaigns for Amazon.in, worked on customer assistance programmes in growth geographies and contributed to the go-to-market strategy for the launch of Prime Video India.

Her career began well away from streaming. At Reliance Brands in Mumbai, she worked on retail marketing for Diesel and Superdry. A stint at Leo Burnett saw her work on primary research for P&G Tide, mapping Indian shoppers’ paths to purchase. Earlier still, at Orange in the United Kingdom, she rose from sales assistant to store manager, running a team and owning monthly P&L for a retail outlet.

The arc is telling. As global streamers fight for attention in a crowded Indian market, executives who understand both mass retail behaviour and digital habit-building are prized. Rane’s career sits at that intersection.

For Netflix, the bet is simple: in a market spoilt for choice, sharp marketing can still tilt the screen. And with Rane now leading the charge, the streamer is signalling it wants not just viewers, but fandom.

Brands

Orient Beverages pops the fizz with steady Q3 gains and rising profits

Kolkata-based beverage maker reports stronger revenues and profits for December quarter.

Published

1 month ago

February 9, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: A fizzy quarter with a steady aftertaste that’s how Orient Beverages Limited, the company that manufactures and distributes packaged drinking water under the brand name Bisleri closed the December 2025 period, as the Kolkata-based drinks maker reported improved revenues and a healthy rise in profits, signalling operational stability in a competitive beverage market.

For the quarter ended December 31, 2025, Orient Beverages posted standalone revenue from operations of Rs 39.98 crore, up from Rs 36.42 crore in the previous quarter and Rs 33.53 crore in the same quarter last year. Total income for the quarter stood at Rs 42.24 crore, reflecting consistent demand and stable pricing across its beverage portfolio.

Profit before tax for the quarter came in at Rs 3.47 crore, a sharp improvement from Rs 1.31 crore in the September quarter and Rs 0.39 crore a year ago. After accounting for tax expenses of Rs 0.79 crore, the company reported a net profit of Rs 2.68 crore, nearly three times the Rs 0.99 crore recorded in the preceding quarter.

On a nine-month basis, the momentum remained intact. Revenue from operations for the period ended December 31, 2025 rose to Rs 117.66 crore, compared with Rs 106.95 crore in the corresponding period last year. Net profit for the nine months climbed to Rs 5.51 crore, more than double the Rs 2.18 crore reported in the same period of the previous financial year.

The consolidated numbers told a similar story. For the December quarter, consolidated revenue from operations stood at Rs 45.06 crore, while profit after tax came in at Rs 2.06 crore. For the nine-month period, consolidated revenue touched Rs 133.57 crore, with net profit of Rs 4.49 crore, underscoring the group’s improving profitability trajectory.

Operating expenses remained largely controlled, with cost of materials, employee benefits and other expenses broadly aligned with revenue growth. The company continued to operate within a single reportable segment beverages simplifying its cost structure and reporting framework.

The unaudited financial results were reviewed by the Audit Committee and approved by the Board of Directors at its meeting held on 7 February 2026. Statutory auditors carried out a limited review and reported no material misstatements in the results.

In a market where margins are often squeezed by input costs and competition, Orient Beverages’ latest numbers suggest the company has found a reliable rhythm not explosive, but steady enough to keep the fizz alive.

Brands

BCCL profit jumps 53 per cent in FY25 as tax bill shrinks

Revenue rises 4.3 per cent to Rs 10,209.33 crore while deferred tax gain lifts bottom line sharply

Published

1 month ago

February 9, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

NEW DELHI: Bennett, Coleman and Company (BCCL) has posted a sparkling set of financial results for the year ended 31 March 2025, proving that there is still plenty of ink and gold left in the ledger.

Revenue from operations climbed a steady 4.3 per cent, reaching Rs 10,209.33 crore compared to Rs 9,786.44 crore the previous year. When you sprinkle in other income, which rose 8.9 per cent to Rs 949.36 crore, the total income for the media behemoth hit a healthy Rs 11,158.69 crore.

While the income grew at a modest pace, the bottom line tells a far more dramatic story. The real headline is the 53 per cent surge in annual profit. How did they pull off such a feat? While Profit Before Tax (PBT) saw a gentle nudge upward of 2.7 per cent to Rs 1,610.00 crore, it was a vanishing act by the taxman that really did the trick.

Total tax expenses plummeted by 32.4 per cent, dropping from Rs 468.76 crore down to Rs 316.97 crore. This was largely thanks to a swing in deferred tax, moving from an expense of Rs 156.02 crore in FY24 to a benefit of Rs 39.44 crore this year.

Total income rose from Rs 10,658.55 crore in FY24 to Rs 11,158.69 crore in FY25, marking a 4.7 per cent increase. Total expenses grew at a slower pace, up 3.0 per cent from Rs 9,306.06 crore to Rs 9,581.45 crore. Profit before tax inched up 2.7 per cent, moving from Rs 1,567.02 crore to Rs 1,610.00 crore. However, the standout figure was net profit, which jumped sharply by 53.0 per cent, climbing from Rs 1,042.03 crore in FY24 to Rs 1,594.73 crore in FY25.

Despite the rising costs of doing business across the globe, BCCL kept a tight grip on the purse strings. Total expenses rose by just 3.0 per cent to Rs 9,581.45 crore. By keeping costs lower than the rate of income growth, the company ensured that the final figure, a net profit of Rs 1,594.73 crore, was nothing short of a front-page sensation.

In a world of shifting digital tides, it seems the BCCL ship is not just steady, but sailing into significantly wealthier waters.