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L&K Saatchi & Saatchi strengthens planning team

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NEW DELHI: L&K Saatchi & Saatchi India has strengthened its core planning team across its offices in India. To begin with, the agency has roped in Anuraag Shrivastav as vice president – planning, North. He will be based out of New Delhi and report to Snehasis Bose, Executive director, L&K Saatchi & Saatchi India. 

As VP, his mandate would be to contribute significantly to brand strategy, build strong relationships with clients, and also to manage and lead the internal strategy team while also playing an active role in the deployment of strategic plans. 

Apart from Shrivastav, the agency has also appointed Shalaka Pradhan as brand strategy director. She will be based out of Bangalore and will also report to Snehasis Bose.   

Anuraag joins L&K Saatchi & Saatchi from FCB Ulka where he was senior brand planning director. He has also been with Enormous Brands and J Walter Thompson in the past and has worked on brands like Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Horlicks, Domino’s, Vistara, National Geographic, OLX, Motorola, Dish TV, Quaker, Aquafina, Hero, among others.

Pradhan joins L&K Saatchi & Saatchi from Publicis India where she was brand director – strategy. Prior to Publicis, she has also had enriching stints at Creativeland Asia, FCB Ulka, Cogito Consulting and Grey India. Some of the brands that she has been actively involved in include Nivea, Zee Café, Zee Marathi, Lakmé, Havmor, etc.     

Snehasis Bose said: “Truth is I have been trying to work with Anuraag since 2015! His experience and freshness + understanding of culture and brands + can-do attitude = the strategic-superpowers our clients need and want!! Am really happy that our stars finally aligned!!!”

As for Pradhan joining in, he added, “Shalaka with her consistent curiosity, her asking of ‘what if?’ is a great fit with the spirit that drives the L&K Saatchi & Saatchi strategic approach. Combined with her solid experience, I believe she will bring the just-right fillip to the Planning team and our clients.”

Shrivastav said: “L&K Saatchi & Saatchi offers an interesting and wide range of brands that push you to adapt and think in different ways. It also supports a culture that encourages breaking norms and questioning the limits of possibility… where you are not constrained by the conventions of what has worked in the past.” 

On his plans for the agency, Srivastav added: “The energy of the place is amazing and there’s a constant push to break out and do new things. The culture is collaborative and I look forward to partnering the teams in creating good work.”

Adding her views, Pradhan said: “Having been a part of the Publicis Groupe in the past, I am excited to come back as a part of the L&K Saatchi & Saatchi team. Over here, there’s a pulsating drive to put out the best work every day. The vibe here is upbeat and I’m looking forward to creating good work and working with some great clients here.”

Both the appointments play a crucial role in L&K Saatchi & Saatchi stepping up its offerings to its clients and also beefing up its leadership teams in key markets like the North & East, which contribute significantly to the agency’s overall growth. Srivastav joins in the North alongside Atin Wahal, who recently was appointed as EVP & head of north and east markets for L&K Saatchi & Saatchi India. 

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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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