MAM
Mindshare partners exclusively with Crayon Data
MUMBAI: In a landmark move, Mindshare has entered into an exclusive partnership with Crayon Data to power its planning, insights and consultancy offering.
The main aim of combining Mindshare’s proprietary data and research with Crayon Data’s big data collection and analytical capability is to offer greater adaptive solutions for marketers. And provide ability to not only identify different consumer profiles and segments, but also target and track those profiles across a complex range of media channels, including social media and video.
For Mindshare, the partnership continues its focus on developing leadership in Adaptive Marketing, a shift that is impacting how the agency thinks about services, products and ways of working. Mindshare’s core DNA is about disruption, provocation and speed, working with open source partners to continuously re-define how media agencies should behave.
With this in mind Mindshare has consciously entered into a range of strategic partnerships across new emerging domains such as big data, mobility, online video, cross screen measurement, advocacy and social content. The agency has re-structured its approach to bring data, content, technology and accountability together in a way, which has unlocked dramatic growth opportunities for both clients and partners.
Mindshare’s Products, Partnerships & Services council chairman and APAC chief client officer Sudipto Roy said, “One of today’s key business challenges is the complexity surrounding the collection of data making traditional database processing and management tools ineffective in helping clients make optimal decisions about their customers’ needs. It’s a fundamental requirement of business success. Without the ability to support customer needs, organisations fail.”
“We are looking at this collaboration to dramatically transform the way consumer insights are mined and connected to our clients’ categories. For one FMCG company, we were able to unearth consumer connections and interests in a way that is almost impossible to do through standard research based methods. For a B2B client, we were able to unlock and profile a million potential leads with exact identification of what they would be likely to buy. This is a game changer; both for insights and for performance/ CRM based initiatives. It’s not a surprise that Crayon Data was recently chosen as one of the top five companies by IBM’s Watson Developer Challenge.” he added.
Crayon Data is one of the fastest growing “big data” startups founded with a vision to simplify the world’s choices. The SimplerChoicesTM engine simplifies the decision making process for marketers, using proprietary algorithms to sort the complexity and present meaningful connections between data points and providing predictions of what consumers really want. The foundation of Crayon’s Choice Engine is the Taste Graph (B2C) and Interest Graph (B2B). Crayon’s taste graph (for B2C companies) already has over 550 million taste nodes reaching close to a billion through 2014. The company’s interest graph (for B2B companies) has extensive information on over 10 million enterprises, with 500M data points.
Crayon Data founding director Suresh Shankar said, “Media, analytics and behaviour is all going digital, and choices are proliferating in every aspect of our life from media to daily decisions. The partnership seeks to marry Mindshare’s media data sets and expertise, and its innovations like Loop Room, with Crayon’s choice engines, algorithms, and taste/interest graphs. This partnership forms part of a big transformation and caters to our mission of turning the misery of choosing into the magic of choice.”
MAM
Nielsen launches co-viewing pilot to sharpen TV measurement
Super Bowl pilot to refine how shared TV audiences are counted
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
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
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.
-
News Broadcasting4 days agoMukesh Ambani, Larry Fink come together for CNBC-TV18 exclusive
-
iWorld1 week agoNetflix celebrates a decade in India with Shah Rukh Khan-narrated tribute film
-
MAM3 months agoHoABL soars high with dazzling Nagpur sebut
-
MAM4 days agoNielsen launches co-viewing pilot to sharpen TV measurement
-
iWorld12 months agoBSNL rings in a revival with Rs 4,969 crore revenue
-
I&B Ministry3 months agoIndia steps up fight against digital piracy
-
iWorld3 months agoTips Music turns up the heat with Tamil party anthem Mayangiren
-
Film Production1 week agoUFO Moviez rides high on strong Q3 earnings


