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Mobile marketing should be more interactive: Media experts

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MUMBAI: In an expanding digital universe, media agencies have to make the organisational shift to tailor to the diverse consumer needs.

Mindshare, WPP‘s leading media agency, has consciously made this shift as it lives online, offline and on mobile.

Mindshare‘s Asia Pacific Digital Lead Nick Seckold believes the nature of new age audience demands a new approach to mobile marketing communication. “In the past, advertisers merely wanted a mobile presence but at Mindshare, our mantra is to adapt to consumers‘ needs, making the campaigns memorable and hard-hitting. Here the missing piece to the puzzle is not “why” advertisers should use mobile but “how” they should use.”

This sentiment is echoed by senior executives of other media agencies. Says Vivaki Exchange CEO Mona Jain, “Mobile marketing can‘t be generalised. There should be different proposition, different ideas and different formats; one should tailor the campaign for different categories. It is very important that mobile marketing campaign should be targeted to relevant audience and should be engaging. Also, the purpose for which the brand wants to use the medium should be solved.”

The demand for media agency professionals to change their mindsets is growing as mobile is slated to stay on the uptrend. According to Portio Research‘s latest report, there will be 6.5 billion mobile subscribers worldwide by end-2012, while annual handset shipments will reach 2.15 billion by 2016. So as mobile technology continues to evolve and significantly influence culture and the lifestyles of consumers, the impact mobile devices are having on daily life is almost unfathomable.

Says Seckold, “In an age of ‘always on‘, people are always on the move and are socially connected through their mobiles 24/7. Hence, there is no doubt that mobile represents a growing opportunity for brands, but penetration alone is not the best reason to convince advertisers to use mobile. The engagement portion through seamless, fun and addictive user interface is key to the success of a mobile campaign.”

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Seckold, thus, urges marketers to put themselves in their target audience‘s shoes and truly understand where they live – online, offline and on mobile.

Carat Media SVP West Himanka Das believes mobile marketing has to be integrated with the digital campaign. Nothing works in isolation. Also, the companies should develop WAP enabled websites and there should be some form of interactivity so that people can give their feedback.

“In mobile marketing what is being seen is that professionals need to segment the database to get the right audience. That should be done so that the campaign reaches to the relevant audience,” says Das.

There are examples across the globe reflecting the gains brands have made through mobile application campaigns. Seckold narrates the example of Ford‘s “Drive Smart” mobile application campaign in India to advertise the new Ford Fiesta this January. The application launch was in sync with the Auto expo, providing the car manufacturer a unique platform to catch auto enthusiasts at the expo. While every car manufacturer was distributing freebies in form of physical product catalogues, merchandise, calendars, Ford distributed this utility cum entertainment application to its users at the expo via handy QR code cards.

“Through social integration (Facebook and check-in), conversations around Ford increased to 2.5 times more than its competitors. An app called “Drive Smart” was developed to engage prospects and customers, with a popular maps feature and traffic updates. The app has had 43,000 downloads and is still counting,” says Seckold.

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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.

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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.

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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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