MUMBAI: When petals fall from the cloud, you know Onam has gone digital. This festive season, Federal Bank, in partnership with Hogarth, turned tradition into a tech-powered celebration, swapping generic greetings for personalised, AI-driven messages that felt anything but robotic.
Using WPP’s AI tools and immersive tech from 8th Wall, the campaign let customers scan a simple QR code on posters, print or metro ads, and suddenly find themselves showered with virtual petals, greeted by a Kathakali dancer, or hearing the familiar trumpet of a vallam kali. And instead of a faceless message, it came directly from their own branch manager: part banker, part digital storyteller.
“This Onam, we wanted to bring plug-and-play joy into people’s homes,” said Federal Bank, cmo, M V S Murthy. “Technology is at its best when it strengthens culture and community, not when it overshadows them.”
Thousands of bespoke greetings were shared across Kerala and beyond, with customers responding with joy, nostalgia, and even surprise. For many in the diaspora, the greeting felt like a piece of home arriving at their phone.
For Hogarth India, ceo, Karthik Nagarajan, the idea was simple: “We’re moving from creating content to crafting experiences. Tech should feel human, not heavy,” he noted.
Backed by AI-assisted motion design, the experience was fully browser-based, no app required, making it as seamless as it was striking. Social chatter followed quickly, with younger audiences latching onto the novelty and sharing the moments widely.
As WPP, global vp of Immersive tech & AI, Dale Imerman, summed it up, “This is India showing how creativity and technology can amplify cultural connection at scale.”
For many, this year Onam didn’t just come home, it came alive on their screens.
MUMBAI: The Market Research Society of India (MRSI) is set to bring fresh energy to Gurugram this month, with its 33rd annual market research seminar promising a heady mix of data, ideas and debate under the banner “The Power of And”.
Dr Saurabh Garg, secretary at the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, will deliver the opening keynote on “Driving impact through data insights: harnessing public-private synergies for a Viksit Bharat at 2047”. His address will anchor two days of panels, papers and provocations at The Leela Ambience on 11–12 September.
The line-up features Karthik Nagarajan of Hogarth, Aradhana Lal of Lemon Tree Hotels and Aditya Kasyap of Unilever, alongside sessions on navigating “many Indias” and a panel on the “joys and dilemmas of insight in the age of technology” with senior voices from HUL, Nestlé, Airtel, Kantar, Smytten and more.
This year drew over 100 research paper submissions, with 22 shortlisted across four themes: bending and breaking methodologies, innovating at the edges, technology as an intersection, and the human mosaic of future leaders.
“The seminar has long been the cornerstone of India’s research and insights industry,” said Rituparna Dasgupta, chairperson of the 33rd edition and EVP at Zee entertainment. “This year’s theme captures how our world is being shaped.”
With Smytten Pulse AI as lead partner and heavyweights such as Kantar, Nestlé, ITC and Hindustan Unilever backing sessions, MRSI is positioning its flagship gathering as more than a talking shop.
MUMBAI: What do you get when you mix flavour, fun, and futuristic tech with zero internet? A rural marketing masterstroke. Centerfruit, from the house of Perfetti Van Melle India, has launched an industry-first voice-based AI campaign that’s got rural tongues wagging – quite literally.
In a bold move to bridge the digital divide, Centerfruit rolled out the Tongue Twister Challenge in partnership with WPP, BharatGPT.ai, and Google Cloud. Targeted at audiences in rural Uttar Pradesh – where smartphone penetration is patchy and data access even patchier – this initiative lets users engage with the brand using nothing more than a basic feature phone.
Sharing his thoughts on the campaign, Perfetti Van Melle India marketing director Gunjan Khetan said, “Rural Bharat is an important market for Centerfruit, and while we have been able to reach millions through Television, there are still pockets where narrating our brand story has been a challenge. However, the latest Voice AI tech activation is a game-changer, it allows us to not just reach but have conversations with people outside of the traditional digital ecosystem. By using AI and creative storytelling, we bring the Kaisi Jeebh Laplapayee spirit to life in a way that feels local, effortless, and deeply inclusive. We believe this is a powerful step toward ensuring that no consumer is left out of the conversation, no matter where they are or what technology they have access to.”
As part of its ongoing ‘Kaisi Jeebh Laplapayee’ campaign, the brand deployed a hyperlocal Voice AI that dialled users directly. All they had to do was give a missed call, and they were in – chatting away in local dialects, tackling tongue twisters, and laughing through a gamified, fully voice-led experience.
The backend was as sophisticated as the frontend was simple. Deployed on Google Cloud, the experience leveraged BharatGPT and CoRover’s desi LLM optimised for Indian languages and dialects. Users’ voices were streamed and converted in real-time, analysed by Gemini (Google’s AI model), and scored on clarity, pronunciation, and speed. No screens, no apps, just good ol’ vocal cords.
But the experience didn’t stop at tongue twisters. Users could also ask questions in their native dialects via BharatGPT.ai’s ‘Ask Engine’ and receive instant responses, turning every call into a conversation.
Google Cloud India VP and country MD, Bikram Singh Bedi added, “Google Cloud’s scalable cloud infrastructure will enable brands like Center Fruit to reach consumers in their native language and Gemini’s capabilities will enable real time scoring which will make the whole user journey exciting while creating more brand recognition. This is a testament to how technology can truly empower businesses and consumers around the globe.”
Wavemaker CEO – South Asia, Ajay Gupte said, “We believe technology should be an equalizer, not a barrier. Our collaboration on the campaign along with BharatGPT.ai and Google Cloud is a powerful example of how voice-based GenAI can bridge the digital divide and bring playful, immersive brand experiences to audiences often overlooked by mainstream media. By combining creativity with scalable tech infrastructure, we’re proud to help create a campaign that’s as inclusive as it is innovative—one that speaks directly to people, in their language, on the devices they already use. This initiative is a step forward in redefining how brands connect with rural India—not just by reaching them, but by truly engaging them in ways that are local, personal, and deeply human.”
Hogarth India CEO Karthik Nagarajan said, “This partnership between Perfetti Van Melle, WPP, Google Cloud, and BharatGPT wasn’t about tech deployment – it was about cultural engineering. We built AI not just to answer questions, but to reflect the wit, rhythm, and warmth of everyday Bharat. When creativity meets technology, you don’t just reach people – you resonate. As a content experience company, we specialize in delivering engaging, enriching brand experiences irrespective of the medium. In this case, we are very grateful to Perfetti Van Melle for providing a platform that enabled us to create such an experience at scale for its audience.”
With this move, Centerfruit hasn’t just taken the road less travelled – it’s made it multilingual, hyperlocal, and powered by next-gen tech. Who said you need 5G to have fun?
MUMBAI: In a bid to bolster its core leadership, GroupM India has elevated and assigned new responsibilities to GroupM business head – entertainment & sports practice (ESP) Vinit Karnik and Wavemaker India chief content officer Karthik Nagarajan.
Karnik will take over the new role of head – sports, esports and entertainment at the agency’s south Asia unit; Nagarajan will take on the additional charge of head of branded content at GroupM India.
In their new roles, Karnik and Nagarajan will report to GroupM south Asia CEO Prasanth Kumar.
“Disruption and evolution go hand in hand and it also brought in opportunities in the content, sports and entertainment space and it is consistently redefining the market place,” said CEO Prasanth Kumar. “While we will continue to build on advertising technologies that will add speed and scale, we are equally committed to enhance our creative process and enable larger solutions in the content space. These leadership appointments signify our commitment to the journey and I am confident in both Vinit and Karthik’s abilities and together we look forward to creating great solutions and opportunities for our clients as well as our partners.”
Karnik joined GroupM 14 years ago and has been at the forefront of some of the high profile, high-value sponsorship and consulting deals in the business of sports and entertainment. Under him, the agency witnessed the launch of thought leadership for Indian sports and entertainment reports titled ‘Sporting Nation in the Making’ and ‘Showbiz’ respectively. Before joining GroupM in 2006, he was a part of the film fraternity in Mumbai, heading the film production and distribution business of Padmalaya Telefilms and Prasad Film Labs post production studio.
“Today a brand has various means to reach out to its audience be it via sports, social media, esports, influencers etc,” said Karnik. “Hence by strengthening our offerings and by bringing together creative optimisation and data, we want to ensure that the brands get to reach their consumers with content, which is highly personalised, effective and relevant for them.”
Nagarajan spent a significant part of his early career in consulting, as a practice head for Frost & Sullivan in the US. Before joining GroupM in 2011, he set up Nielsen’s online division and was also the India country head for NM Incite, the joint venture between Nielsen and McKinsey for social media consulting in India. He set up the social media practice for GroupM India, which also included its foray into advocacy. Nagarajan also evangelised the data agenda for GroupM by building its social analytics practice, products like Radar and the command centre offering. In 2015, he conceived and launched Brew, which became the premier content up-front event for not just GroupM but the industry as well.
NEW DELHI: Mother Dairy Ice Creams along with Wavemaker and RED FM have conceptualised and executed the brand’s latest campaign for Rocket ice cream chocolate in association with Red FM.
RED FM RJs interacted with Neila, the alien brand mascot of Mother Dairy’s Rocket Ice Cream chocolate and invited the listeners to share their pictures with the newly launched product on the social media with the hashtag #RockItWithRocket to win hampers. Hosted on RED FM’s on-air and digital platforms this innovative campaign showcased alien invasion at RED FM studios.
A Mother Dairy spokesperson said, “It has been our constant endeavour to introduce enticing ice cream flavours to our consumers to keep them delighted throughout. This year has been no different with the launch of a unique Ice Cream Chocolates category under the new brand Rocket. To engage and excite the imagination of young target audience our creative partner Ogilvy has created an awkwardly cute and adorable intergalactic alien-Neila as the brand mascot. Here is a fun piece of Neila trivia, the name Neila isn’t just derived from the alien’s colour as referred to the color Blue in Hindi, but it is also the word ALIEN spelt in reverse – NEILA.”
He further added, “As part of our consumer engagement initiative, we have launched a fun campaign #RockItWithRocket on social media and have also associated with Red FM to strengthen Neila’s connect with the consumers. The campaign is duly building up the momentum by engaging consumers from all spheres and we are confident that our consumers will find our new range truly exciting and delightful.”
Wavemaker India chief content officer Karthik Nagarajan said, “Our work is only as innovative as our clients and partners. Adaptive marketing is all about brands understanding popular culture and becoming a part of it seamlessly. Neila is a playfully innovative way of using meme marketing to cut through the clutter and making the brand endearing to the customer. Mother Dairy has always been supportive of contemporary campaigns that drove us to design this fun campaign along with our partner Red FM.”
RED FM and Magic FM director and COO Nisha Narayanan said, “An innovative product needs an innovative campaign and we are happy to be associated with Mother Dairy for the launch of Rocket, Ice Cream Chocolate. The thought behind this campaign was to create more conversations and playfulness around the newly launched product by Mother Dairy.”
Check out the video with RED FMs RJ Raunac with Mother Dairy Rocket Ice Cream Chocolate:
MUMBAI: A carnival of powerful stories and storytellers united by the love for cinema – Royal Stag Barrel Select Large Short Film returns on Zee Café for the second time. An influential and celebrated platform for short films that recognizes the innate talent and skill of filmmakers truly deserves to be celebrated and Zee Café takes it a notch up by showcasing these masterpieces to a wider audience. Featuring a curation of finely-crafted short-films that promise to leave you in awe, the channel, available with the Zee Prime English Pack, enthrals its discerning audience starting every Fridays and Saturdays at 10 PM.
The series of original, powerful and inspiring short-films including ‘Tindey & Unread’, ‘Siblings & Anukul’, ‘The Lovers & Everything is Fine’, ‘Gadhedo & Chutney’ among others were showcased in a 6-city tour including Hyderabad, Kolkata, Gurgaon, Pune, Delhi and Jalandhar. With a host of gifted filmmakers donning the director’s hat, the riveting short-films stand for meaningful and engaging content, truly leaving viewers in captivated.
In a specially curated panel discussion, the platform invited cinematic maestros like Anil Kapoor, Farah Khan, Jimmy Shergill, Rakeysh Omprakash Mehra, Randeep Hooda, Vinay Pathak and Zoya Akhtar and many more from the industry who conversed around cinema, what makes films powerful and their own pursuit of excellence. The 6-part series explores the depths of Indian cinema in an engaging discussion with these maestros of cinema who are known for their craft. Giving viewers a deeper insight into what goes behind the making of a film, the series also features exclusive interviews of the makers as they unearth the many layers of the films.
ZEEL chief growth officer Ashish Sehgal said, “Consumers have gradually warmed up to short-films as a content consumption format. Viewers are looking for meaningful experiences that these compelling short-films have to offer. Moreover, brands, who seek to engage with their audience in innovative ways, see it as a fitment. True testimony to its success is the countless cinephiles who gather year-on-year for the screenings along with loyal enthusiasts who are committed to witnessing the works of art on Zee Café. This truly reflects in our continued partnership with Pernod Ricard for the second year in a row. It brings us immense happiness to collaborate with Royal Stag Barrel Select Large Short Films in the endeavour to recognize the works of budding filmmakers and amplify it with a wider audience.”
Pernod Ricard India GM marketing Ishwindar Singh said, “Royal Stag Barrel Select Large Short Films has pioneered a revolution in the field of filmmaking and has redefined movie-watching for cinephiles. To tell a compelling story in 15 to 20 minutes needs one to be a master in story-telling and filmmaking. The platform celebrates this pursuit of excellence as we bring together the finest storytellers from the world of cinema to create short yet impactful films. With the Zee network we endeavour to reach a larger audience with these insightful and powerful discussions on cinema.”
Wavemaker chief content officer Karthik Nagarajan said, “The journey of Royal Stag Barrel Select Large Short Films is an inspirational one. To have captured the imagination of the audience and to have become such an iconic part of popular culture is a dream for every brand. It is easily the gold standard in India for content marketing and it has been a privilege for Wavemaker and GroupM to have been a part of this. Every year, the challenge is in making it bigger than the previous one and this partnership is an important part of this journey.”
MUMBAI: The first significant moments of any relationship are always cherished. With this simple thought in mind, Pocket Aces is launching its new unique web series “Firsts” in partnership with Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk facilitated by Wavemaker. Silk will be seamlessly integrated in the series as an enabler for the wonderful moments in the relationship.
“Firsts” is the first-of-its-kind in many ways – it’s the first-ever series to be premiering in this format on Instagram, and it is also the first series to have distinct stories in each Season – i.e. Season 2 will have a different story than Season 1, hence maintaining the essence of showing the firsts in various relationships. The series will be released via daily one-minute episodes on Dice Media’s Instagram page, with each episode covering a significant moment in the relationship – the first time the couple saw each other, the first time they talked to each other, the first time they spoke on the phone, the first time they fought, etc.
In a bid to capture relatability to a school going audiences and nostalgia for the other audiences, Firsts Season 1 takes us back to our school life and shows the magic of an innocent and tender school romance. The series features popular digital actors Rohan Shah and Apoorva Arora, who have been previously seen together in many FilterCopy videos have received much love and appreciation from the audience. Their video ‘Every School Romance’ has amassed over 30 million views alone! The series also features the very popular Viraj Ghelani with talented actor Urvi Singh as secondary leads.
Commenting on the launch of the series, Pocket Aces co-founder Aditi Shrivastava said, “We are extremely excited to partner with Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk for Firsts. We’re constantly innovating on content formats, and are very proud to be releasing the first-ever Instagram focused web series. The huge success of our web series Little Things has taught us that the audience loves seeing the small, cute moments of a relationship. In addition, we have done a lot of content around school life be it school romance, or exams, school bffs, etc. and they have all worked very well. Firsts Season 1 is an amalgamation of both these data points – showing the small moments of a blooming school romance. Silk with its romantic imagery is the most seamless and intuitive fit for this concept, and we’re excited to bring in Valentine’s Day 2020 together to the audiences.”
Speaking about the association, Wavemaker India chief content officer Karthik Nagarajan said, “There is a rapid dynamic shift in the entertainment consumption patterns and preferences. Social media has become the go-to platform for entertainment amongst millennials. Taking this cue ahead, Dice media, in association with Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk decided to create a unique digital branded content initiative – an Instagram-first web series ‘FIRSTS’, for this Valentine’s season. Silk, over the years has always inspired us with its meaningful marketing campaigns and we are sure ‘Firsts’ will be yet another impactful innovation by the brand.”
MUMBAI: Wavemaker, the media, content and technology agency of GroupM has created a quirky digital campaign for pharma major Lupin Ltd’s (Lupin) OTC arm Lupin Life featuring its new woman-care product, V-Bath. The campaign named #SahiBaat aims to build awareness among women around the usage of intimate hygiene wash and encourages them to openly discuss their concerns rather than being ‘shusssh’ about it.
Featuring vivacious Richa Chadha, the campaign video builds on the storyline of how even confident women avoid talking about intimate hygiene, do not give the issue any priority and end up compromising their own health.
Talking about the launch of V-Bath on digital media,Lupin Life head Anil Kaushal said, “We have reinvented V-Bath by making changes in the product based on new research and customer feedback, and are looking forward to re-introduce it in the market. It was imperative for us to get our first communication right and Wavemaker helped us develop this campaign based on an integrated content solution approach. The #SahiBaat campaign delivers our message and represents our product philosophy in the best possible way.”
Talking about the campaign conceptualisation, Wavemaker India chief content officer Karthik Nagarajan said, “When Lupin wanted to launch V-Bath, we did not look at it as just a product launch but a new category altogether. We recommended a digital-only launch as we thought it was the best way to generate buzz around an issue that has largely been taboo, while generating consideration for the brand. Extremely proud of our ‘Originals’ team which conceptualised the film and our partners. However, none of this would have been possible without a progressive client who was willing to walk the talk!”
