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Percept/H wins Bharat Nirman creative biz

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MUMBAI: Percept/H won the creative duties of Bharat Nirman, the set of flagship programmes initiated by the central government for the development of rural India. The win is an outcome of a seven-agency pitch in July that included Dentsu, Grey and Concept.

Bharat Nirman was launched around six years back. So far, the communication had always projected the schemes as an opportunity to improve and empower the lives of people. The focus this year is to project the change that people have experienced in their lives through these schemes.

The agency has already started work on the account and has rolled out the first campaign for the client.

The agency was asked to project the Bharat Nirman programs as the ‘right‘ or ‘haq‘ of people provided by the central government. In order to communicate this, the agency decided to show the change in people‘s life once they demanded their “haq” and which once they got, empowered them to impact their lives in a positive manner. The idea was to portray the moment of transition from the underdog to a person who knows his or her rights and the feeling of ‘pride‘ associated with the sense of achievement.

The campaign is being executed through a complete 360 degrees approach with print, TVCs and radio. The logistical challenges of executing the TVCs were immense: 7 programme TVCs and one overarching jingle TVC, 4 language masters for each, making it a total of 32 master films and dubs in 7 languages of each film, making it 56 dubs. In all, a total of mind boggling 88 films.

The campaign used a jingle “Bharat ke is Nirman pe haq hai mera”. It is directed by Paresh and Naresh Kamath and sung by Kailash Kher and Neha Bhasin. It aims to embody the emotions of people who have taken their rightful “haq” and which everyone should demand. It reflects the pride associated with the positive change that the people of India are empowered to bring about in their lives.

The campaign includes initiatives in TV, print and radio. The idea was not just about reaching the rural masses in every nook and corner of this country by the width of its media usage and reach through multiple use of TV and radio channels and maximizing newspaper. There was equal focus on the way this campaign has been creatively conceived, designed and produced so as to connect with rural masses, relate to them, impact and involve them.

The campaign covers the seven programs offered by Bharat Nirman through film, print and radio along with a 90 sec film. The film has been created in a way that covers every region and every language by separately creating an edition for different regions, in different languages, bringing out the authentic and real environment and setting and all the local nuances so as to connect better with local people of any region.

These films have been extremely sensitively produced and filmed by Pradeep Sircar and his Apocolypso team with Joydeep Sircar directing all the films. The communication initiative by Bharat Nirman and Percept H is unique because no other brand in the social, government or corporate (national or multinational) sector has ever attempted a massive and authentic communication and production.

Percept/H executive creative director Rajiv Agrawal said, “Till now, over the last few years, the Bharat Nirman campaign has really been from the POV of the Govt., and not from the POV of the people. This is what we corrected. It‘s a people‘s campaign this time around and exhorts them to claim their right. It‘s classic storytelling which attempts to engage the audience in the warm, aggressive campaign. Also, the look-feel is deliberately different, non-sarkaari. I believe that social campaigns should not be any different in look-feel from brand campaigns. The principle remains the same: you are trying to engage your audience by providing them a sound reason-to-believe”.

Percept H COO (North) Amitava Mitra said, “Bharat Nirman has always been an extremely prestigious project for us since its launch, and this year too, it was a matter of great pride for us to win it. The complexities involved in the execution of the campaign were extremely challenging with multiple programs, languages etc. But at the end of it is a hugely gratifying and satisfying experience.”

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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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