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Kohli brand driving on the up

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MUMBAI: From a rambunctious maverick to becoming India’s most celebrated player, Virat Kohli is the man that brands pay crores to get on board.  

Kohli has emerged as the star celebrity of Indian advertising and brands are willing to spend crores to get him. The Indian cricket captain’s brand equity was valued higher than football star Lionel Messi in the Forbes top 10 list of global athletes of 2017 at an estimated value of $14.5 million. According to a recent report by corporate advisers Duff & Phelps, Kohli is India’s most valuable brand surpassing even Bollywood’s king Shah Rukh Khan who held the title since 2014.

Known for his innings, temper and wise choices on field, cricket fans have seen Kohli turn from a brash young boy into a decisive and strong-willed leader. As he matured in his life and cricket, so did his decisions on the brands he associates himself with.

While the early glamour may have pushed him to advocate Pepsi and Fair & Lovely Men, he eventually decided to move away from these brands. He was signed up as the brand ambassador for Pepsi in 2011 but refused to renew the contract which ended in April 2017, saying at the time that he would not ask people to consume something that he himself does not. Kohli said, “Things that I’ve endorsed in the past – I won’t take names – but something that I feel that I don’t connect to anymore. If I myself won’t consume such things, I won’t urge others to consume it just because I’m getting money out of it.”

Many saw his move as a sign of a man who believes in himself and someone who has invested his mind, heart and body in his role as a leader in society. “I want to give something to people that I use myself. One of the reasons I decided not to sign Pepsi is that I have undergone a lifestyle change. It might have been big money for me and a very lucrative deal but I opted out as we need to have some thought behind the products we promote and we must understand that people trust us,” he added. 

Kohli also no longer endorses fairness creams or products of that genre since equating success with skin fairness goes against his values.

Other brands he decided to stop endorsing include 3C Company, Celkon Mobiles, Cinthol Soap, Clear Shampoo, Fair & Lovely, Fastrack Watches, Flying Machine, Mattel, Munch chocolate, Oakley Sunglasses, Red Chief Shoes, Sangam Suitings and Toyota Motors.

It was reported in 2013 that Kohli’s brand endorsements were worth over Rs 100 crore with his bat deal with MRF to be the costliest deal in Indian cricket history. 

In 2017, he signed an eight-year endorsement deal with Puma for Rs 110 crore, becoming the first Indian sportsperson to hit the ton with a brand. The Manyavar face today endorses over 20 brands. Some of his iconic brand associations are with Gionee Mobile, Colgate, Vicks Vapo Rub, Boost, American Tourister, and Punjab National Bank among others. 

Several eyes rolled when he signed with Royal Challenge but he has always maintained that he does not endorse or promote alcohol in any way but is rather promoting the brand’s energy drink. He recently signed deals with Uber India and snack company TOO YUM.

But what makes Virat Kohli such a huge hit where he now seems to have surpassed Amitabh Bachchan and Shahrukh Khan to become every Indian brand’s first choice? 

Brand expert Saurabh Uboweja believes Virat Kohli’s consistency in performance on the field and he being an icon who stands for the values the youth of India resonates with, has made him a hot pick. He adds, “Kohli exudes the charm and attitude of a celebrity and loves the media, limelight and is a natural performer both on and off the field.”

Kohli has an undying love for sports and with football being his second favourite sport, Kohli became a co-owner of Indian Super League club FC Goa in 2014. He is also the co-owner of International Premier Tennis League franchise UAE Royals and JSW-owned Bengaluru Yodhas franchise in Pro Wrestling League.

Kohli is one of the few cricketers who have an equal taste for cricket and fashion (media). In 2014, Kohli along with Universal Sportsbiz (USPL) launched a youth fashion brand for men WROGN. He has also invested Rs 90 crore to start his own chain of gyms and fitness centres across the country, under the name Chisel. In 2016, Kohli started Stepathlon Kids, a children fitness venture, in partnership with Stepathlon Lifestyle.

The young cricketer still has a long road and career ahead and his star value is unlikely to dim anytime in the future. It will be exciting to see how his brand associations shape going forward as he is the only cricketer in India today that brands are dying to align themselves with.

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.

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.

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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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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