MUMBAI: In an industry known for cutthroat competition, Mumbai’s ad world hit pause on rivalry for one night of pure creative synergy. Portfolio Night 2025, hosted by BBDO, DDB Mudra Group and TBWA India, wasn’t just about portfolios; it was about passion, purpose, and a pinch of personality.
Organised by The One Club for Creativity, the global event gathered students, recent grads and young professionals for a high-energy evening of one-on-one portfolio reviews. In fast-paced 15-minute sessions, hopefuls met top creative directors, got real feedback, and maybe even their big break.
DDB Mudra CCO Rahul Mathew, called it a necessity, not just a vision. “Our only real asset is talent. Events like this help us find, mentor and protect it, and that benefits everyone.
Each participant faced multiple rounds of reviews, rated on ideas, execution, originality, variety, consistency, presentation, and yes, attitude. But it wasn’t all critique and scorecards; it was also about connection.
FCB Group India digital creative partner Kartikeya Tiwari, said he looks beyond the basics, “I look for courage and personality. Most portfolios are skilful, but what stands out is soul.”
For FCB Group India CCO Neville Shah, the future needs boldness, “Some portfolios were too perfect. We need work that surprises us, that makes us say, ‘What is this?’”
Meanwhile, Leo Burnett national creative director Vikram Pandey (Spiky), found hope in the next generation’s openness to technology. “The ones embracing AI are the ones shaping the future. AI won’t take jobs, people who use AI well will.”
Among the buzzing crowd was Shivani Unnikrishnan, a student at École Intuit Lab, who left the night inspired, “It was our first time, and we learned so much. Meeting creative directors gave us new perspectives and confidence.”
At the close of the evening, Kareena and Sumit were crowned Mumbai’s All-Stars. They will now represent the city in the global All-Star programme, competing with winners from around the world. A final win could take them to New York City for a week-long, in-person workshop.
In the end, though, every participant walked away richer, with sharper insights, stronger networks and a renewed sense of creative confidence. Because at Portfolio Night, even rivals agree on one thing: when creativity wins, everyone does.
Mumbai: While the Women’s Premiere League reached great heights in shattering biases in the world of cricket, we saw Ellyse Perry of Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) shatter not only stereotypes about women in the sport, but also the window of the title sponsor’s display car, the TATA.ev.
Perry’s sixer broke the car’s glass window on 4 March.
FCB Kinnect & Tata.ev decided to take this moment of brouhaha and turn it into a memorable triumph for the cricketer, by bestowing her with the ‘Perry Powerful Punch’ award – which also carried the date on which she broke the glass.
What’s special about this award is that it was carefully crafted with the shattered glass of the very window that Perry broke.
The internet was in awe of the gesture by the brand, which made headlines in several sports and other publications.
Taking to social media, the brand said, “You did what every kid playing cricket on the streets, dodging parked cars, dreams of doing but never actually dares. Breaking that display car wasn’t just a jaw-dropping moment; it was a sweet, sweet nod to the mischievous joy hidden in the heart of every cricket lover. Cheers to you, the window-breaking warrior of the #TATAWPL 2024!”
Tata.ev encouraged Perry to never break her spirit for anything, and especially not over broken glass.
FCB Kinnect national creative director Kartikeya Tiwari said, “Contemporary brands are built as much on unplanned moments, as on planned ones. The WPL is bigger than just a cricket tournament – it’s a celebration of resilience and talent. This incident was the perfect epitome of how women in India are shattering the glass ceiling. We simply wanted to immortalise this by giving Perry her flowers and not taking the genuineness out of this moment.”
Mumbai: If something seems too good to be true, it probably isn’t. To highlight this and remind people of the harsh reality of the growing online frauds, HDFC Bank, together with FCB Kinnect decided to ‘scam to save’ with their new campaign EOSS: End of Scam Sale!
To warn people, who are likely to get swayed by the number of discounts and end-of-season sales they come across, HDFC Bank’s anti-fraud influencer Vigil Aunty upped her game, by morphing herself into the Bollywood actress, Nora Fatehi. With the increasing number of deepfakes shocking the world, they decided to take the audience for a ride.
Knowing that a lot of people would fall prey to this, Vigil Aunty posed using Nora Fatehi’s
deepfakes, for a glamorous, but ‘unheard’ fashion brand called ‘Lulumelon’.
Fatehi’s pictures and videos were plastered around the brand’s Instagram page, showcasing
unbelievable discounts that had everyone talking about the brand’s EOSS.
However, when an excited but ignorant user ended up on the brand’s landing page, they got
a reality check. They were SCAMMED. Sorry, SAVED from being scammed!
HDFC Bank created a fake brand from scratch and had audiences believe its legitimacy by creating an Instagram page and choosing the brand’s name, making it sound like ‘Lululemon’ – a genuine apparel brand which made it hard for users to spot the difference between the two. They also ran ads targeting people and used AI and Machine Learning to morph Nora’s face on Vigil Aunty.
What’s special about this campaign is the fact that a reputed brand like HDFC Bank risked its regard temporarily, all to safeguard people from falling prey to scamsters by letting them live through their worst nightmare for a few moments.
Not forgetting our AI partner, Gan.ai who helped us bring the real Nora to life in the form of Vigil Aunty.
Acknowledging that scamsters always try to be one step ahead of a smart consumer, HDFC Bank together with FCB Kinnect did scam people, but only to save them!
The campaign went live on 20 January, starting with the offers on the fictitious brand Lulumelon’s Instagram page. Nora Fatehi revealed the idea behind the campaign in the reveal video which she put up on her Instagram page on January 23.
FCB Kinnect national creative director Kartikeya Tiwari said, “Discounts are a big part of the Indian psychology, which makes it so easy for AI to give an illusion of something genuine just by throwing a couple of mind-blowing offers around. This coupled with optimism bias, which is the perception that nothing wrong could happen to oneself was what led us to create a convincing fake brand called ‘Lulumelon’ and we hope that it bursts people’s bubble of invincibility. We had a lot of fun getting our creative and media teams to think like that of a scamster.”
HDFC Bank senior vice president and head of digital acquisition, website, social media and content marketing Jahid Ahmed added, “Many people fall victim to scams because of a false sense of security, believing it could never happen to them. We used deepfakes since they have been rampant in our society of late, with celebrities like Rashmika Mandanna, Sachin Tendulkar, and Alia Bhatt, among others also falling victim to it. Yet, people are still missing the extent to which they can cause real harm to us. Knowing how fraudsters use End of Season Sales as a window to lure shoppers with deals that are too good to be true, we defrauded people, to raise awareness and educate them about real fraud. However, we kept in mind that this must be done responsibly and ethically. To give this initiative a real and impactful meaning, we went a step further by investing time and resources in creating authentic deepfakes using advanced machinery. This allowed us to simulate realistic scenarios and demonstrate the potential risks associated with falling for deceptive practices, ensuring that all red flags can be seen and understood by the public.”
HDFC Bank group head, CMO, head-direct to consumer business Ravi Santhanam said, “With ‘people’ at the core of our values, we believe in taking initiatives that educate and equip people for their safety. We have gone to great lengths with Vigil Aunty to spread awareness about financial fraud entertainingly, and with ‘End of Scam Sale’, we wanted to challenge people’s optimism bias and show them how susceptible they are to fraud.”
Our efforts in creating awareness against online fraud were also acknowledged and appreciated by the government.
Speaking about the campaign, Mayank Jain, scientist-e/director to Govt. of India, digital economy division, Ministry of Electronics & Information Technology (MeitY), said, “I am happy to see this initiative of HDFC Bank. In my opinion, this will help in disseminating the awareness of public awareness about Deepfakes, and rising negative use cases of AI (Artificial Intelligence) apart from curbing the Cyber Financial frauds.”
Government of India, I.T.S, assistant director General (AI & DIU), Artificial Intelligence & Digital Intelligence Unit, Department of Telecommunications, Ministry of Communications, Naveen Jakhar added, “I have seen the video and information conveyed through the conversation of Nora Fatehi and Vigil Aunty is so meaningful to the citizens wherein they can easily correlate it to the new age crimes like deep fake, fake videos, fake audios which might be misused in carrying out cyber-crimes and financial frauds also. Sincerely appreciate the efforts of HDFC Bank in thinking out of the box to keep the citizens informed and aware of the subject matter.”
Mumbai: Lenovo & Intel’s branded content series ‘Brave New Art’ is back for its second season on Disney+ Hotstar. The series unites artists across different mediums to forge a never-imagined-before creative fusion. This season, the singular promise of being ‘braver’ shines through every aspect, from the diverse art mediums and edgy artists to storytelling, production, and the awe-inspiring final result.
Four exceptional Indian artists, each masters in their respective disciplines, are challenged to combine their creative prowess and take their creativity to unexplored heights. Gopika Sukumaran, a Kalaripayattu martial artist, and Vinay Hedge, a Tilt Brush artist, kick off the series. Swapping her sword for a digital tilt brush, her warrior moves to create an extraordinary multi-dimensional painting.
The second episode features digital artist Siddhant Gandhi (@toosid) and AI artist Madhav Kohli (@mvdhav), tackling the unprecedented task of envisioning a museum 500 years into the future. Each exhibit in the virtual museum pushes the limits of creativity and showcases the seamless fusion of art and technology.
Using the Intel-powered Lenovo Yoga laptops, the content series breaks new ground for the category. Showcasing the formidable synergy between Intel and Lenovo – a technological collaboration essential for pushing the boundaries beyond the ordinary.
National creative director Kartikeya Tiwari, said, “We’re very grateful and proud to create long-term intellectual properties for our partner brands. Brave New Art is one of the finest from our creative house. This year we decided to really set a starting point which was scarily audacious.”
“Our innate curiosity drove us to wonder what would happen if Kalaripayattu met 3D Art or what would a museum of the future look like. With Lenovo and Intel’s partnership, and collaborations with top-tier artists, we were able to really make art that is brave,” Tiwari added.
Lenovo brand marketing manager Monica Reddy stated, “Time and again, we marketers have been spoon-fed the myth of dwindling attention spans – that we have seconds to convey our message given that the world lives under a great deluge of entertainment and information. Brave New Art Season 1.0 proved that wrong. When truly captivated by a compelling story, people have plenty of time and attention. And with Season 2.0, the attempt is to take storytelling and visual delight up by several notches. The Lenovo Yoga range offers many exciting features, especially for creators. And what better way to bring this alive than to show real-life use cases in an exciting, engaging format – albeit 8-10 mins long? It transcends a mere campaign for us by inviting consumers on a creative journey and establishing the Yoga ecosystem as an essential must-have for those in the field through demonstration.”
Global Account (Lenovo), Asia Pacific & Japan, Intel director, said George Chacko, “Intel is incredibly proud to be associated with the ‘Brave New Art’ campaign, helping artists push the boundaries of creativity using cutting edge technology made possible by the strong collaboration between Intel and Lenovo. It is not surprising that the creative team behind this new campaign chose the latest Lenovo Yoga Laptops powered with Intel® Core™ processors. These laptops, exemplifying the future of computing and torchbearers of Intel’s Engineered for Evo program, deliver to best-in-class AI-powered performance, enhanced battery life, instant wake, fast-charging, high-quality cameras and enhanced connectivity features.”
