MUMBAI: ET Now Swadesh, India’s fastest-growing Hindi business news channel, is turning four this October, marking the milestone with a day-long programming special themed ‘Swadesh Ke 4 Saal, Bharosa Beshumaar.’
Since its launch in 2021, ET Now Swadesh has carved out a reputation as the country’s trusted guide for investors, empowering viewers with clear, credible, and actionable insights on markets, mutual funds, and wealth creation. Its mission: linking individual prosperity with India’s financial growth story.
The anniversary special on 3 October packs in marquee segments featuring India’s sharpest financial minds, from Nilesh Shah (Kotak MF), Radhika Gupta (Edelweiss MF) and Devina Mehra (First Global) to market leaders like Ashish Kumar Chauhan (NSE) and Sundararaman Ramamurthy (BSE). The lineup spans investment strategies, SIP fundamentals, and exclusive conversations with CEOs and fund managers.
Congratulating the channel, The Times Group MD Vineet Jain said, “In just four years, ET Now Swadesh has helped shape India’s culture of investment, with demat accounts surging from 7 crore to 25 crore since 2020. The channel continues to be a trusted partner in every Indian household’s financial journey.”
From demystifying the stock market to fostering financial literacy, ET Now Swadesh has consistently positioned itself as more than just a news channel but a driver of financial empowerment.
As it steps into its fifth year, the channel aims to deepen financial inclusion and deliver sharper insights for India’s growing pool of retail investors. After all, as ET Now Swadesh itself says, “सटीक और निष्पक्ष निवेश सलाह.”
MUMBAI: The Advertising Club Madras is bringing the heat with the 43rd edition of Maddys, giving India’s longest-running advertising awards a slick new sheen – and a global passport. This year’s rebooted avatar doesn’t just honour great work, it redefines the very format with new categories, a heavyweight jury, a transparent scoring system, and an international welcome mat.
Themed ‘AI vs AI – Awesome Ideas vs Awesome Ideas’, Maddys 2025 goes all in on the creative wars in a tech-saturated world – and the stakes are high.
For starters, it’s going international. The awards will now invite entries from across borders, aligning themselves with global benchmarks. With 155 categories across six streams – Creative, Digital, Media, Design & Print Craft, Film & Audio Craft, and Regional Pride (Tamil) – this isn’t just a celebration, it’s a campaign for creative excellence.
The 2025 edition also introduces Grand Prix honours, a one-day celebration that starts with breakfast and ends with a cocktail, and a robust, two-tiered judging system scored on Strategy & Insights, Originality & Creativity, and Execution & Impact – minus the fluff of performance metrics.
The dream jury team includes:
. Karthi Marshan, former Kotak CMO, and Senthil Kumar of VML India co-chairing Creative MADDYS
. Ajay Gupte of Wavemaker chairing Media
. Dr. Apurva Chamaria of Google helming Digital
. Filmmaking duo Gayatri & Pushkar chairing Film & Audio Craft
. Santosh Padhi of Into Creative on Design & Print Craft duty
. Chocka of OPN taking charge of Regional Pride Maddys
Process czar Gokul Krishnamoorthy returns as honorary jury convenor and process auditor, ensuring the judging stays squeaky clean and crystal clear.
Aside from bragging rights, agencies and clients can win titles across streams. Grand Prix winners bag 30 points, with Gold (15), Silver (7), Bronze (3), and Shortlists (1) rounding out the leaderboard — all contributing to the prestigious “Agency of the Year” and “Client of the Year” crowns across categories.
From art directors to Tamil-language storytellers, from global digital campaigns to handcrafted print ideas — Maddys 2025 isn’t just turning up the volume, it’s tuning into the future. Ready, set, pitch.
MUMBAI: Sugosh Iyer has hit the refresh button, stepping into the hotseat as head of digital trading at Mindshare earlier this year, leading the charge on all things digital for FMCG titan Unilever.
In his new role, Iyer will pilot negotiations, data and tech partnerships, first-party data strategies, and turbocharge commerce conversations — stitching together the future of media buying across connected ecosystems.
It’s been quite the pivot-packed journey. Iyer’s career, spanning over 17 years, has crisscrossed industries and continents: from banking at Kotak to media stints at NDTV Media, Starcom, Spatial Access, Flipkart, and senior leadership gigs across Madison, GroupM, and Kansai Nerolac Paints. Most recently, he helmed digital marketing for Grasim Industries (Pulp & Fibre), blending traditional business sense with e-commerce agility.
Known for his customer acquisition chops, B2B savvy, and an eye for e-commerce acceleration, Iyer has consistently stayed ahead of the curve, whether in the bustling media hubs of Mumbai or navigating client leadership roles in Kuala Lumpur.
With digital trading now the frontline of advertising wars, Mindshare seems to have found the perfect battering ram — a blend of finance brains, media muscle, and tech-first thinking — to storm the gates of tomorrow’s marketing battlefield.
NEW DELHI: With the digital domain growing at a magnificent pace, brands across categories are looking towards it for marketing their products. In the past year, several businesses have admitted to increasing their digital ad spends and investing more time and energy to make the most of the medium. In fact, many legacy brands have adopted a digital-first approach to reach out to their potential customers. One such category, that is continuously growing on digital platforms, be it for marketing or customer services, is the BFSI sector.
Hotstuff CEO Arun Fernandes estimated that the BFSI sector is annually spending Rs 2,000 crore on digital advertising and is the second-largest contributor to the digital marketing industry after e-commerce. “The BFSI sector has been showing great growth on digital platforms, not just for advertising but also product development because of the growing awareness around digital media,” he noted. “That’s also because a lot of transactions are now happening digitally and even the government is spreading awareness about it. The top spenders in the category right now are SBI and HDFC, along with Kotak.”
He added that he expects an eight to ten per cent increase in expenses by the sector on digital platforms. “The primary focus is going to be on the hybridisation of their services, followed by product development and improving the convenience for the user. Additionally, a substantial amount is going to be diverted towards educating the consumers.”
Fernandes is willing to make the most of this vast pool of opportunities that lie in the sector with Hotstuff – a more than a two-decade-old agency known for its marcomm solutions.
“We started with Hotstuff in the year 2000 and currently, 90-95 per cent of my business is coming from the BFSI sector. It is a growing segment, yet, we see that not many specialised agencies are there to cater to their unique needs. For example, most of the big agencies have started creating specialised wings for the healthcare sector. So, we are the only player right now in the mid-size agency category doing this work and I see great opportunities out there for us,” he shared.
The agency is currently planning to become the one-stop-shop for all the creative and marketing needs of the BFSI sector. “We want to position ourselves as a content-driven company that creates meaningful stories and can educate the customers on investment opportunities, help them do better in their financial and saving capabilities, and convert them into permanent customers for our clients,” Fernandes said.
According to him, the biggest strength for Hotstuff right now is the strong domain knowledge that the entire team has, and their ability to tell impactful stories in the financial space. “We have a strong video production team that understands the conversations and the formats. Additionally, we have an incredible digital team and an activation & events team, so the clients do not have to look anywhere else.”
While digital is the core focus of the agency, it also helps the brands leverage other ATL and BTL mediums too. In the past few months, Hotstuff has worked on many incredible projects; one of their best ones being the ICICI Prudential SIP-hop campaign. The campaign beautifully utilised the desi hip hop genre to educate the customer about SIPs.
“Over three weeks, the radio campaign targeted listeners across seven markets, with spots on the top three stations in every city. The client limited the plan to the morning time-band only, to have a higher frequency during prime time, further amplified reach during these hours through music streaming platforms like Spotify, JioSaavn and Gaana. Over and above running regular advertisement formats, the song was also listed organically across various platforms. Besides being able to serve relevant content to a targeted audience, we were also able to rack up over 10 million complete 30 second listens, at a very effective cost per spot, in a short period,” elaborated Fernandes.
Another interesting campaign that came from the brand was Star Union Dai-ichi Life Insurance (SUD Life) attempting to educate people on why insurance is a prime need and induce people to inquire about insurance and the adequateness of their cover. Hotstuff worked with adman Prahlad Kakkar to recreate the sets and music of the 70s in order to position Life Insurance as the fourth basic need after Roti, Kapda Aur Makaan. The campaign that ran across television, cinema, OOH, and digital platforms received great attention.
While the path ahead looks quite promising to Fernandes, the only immediate challenge he sees on the way is the new work-from-home system, wherein the face-to-face meetings have drastically reduced. “I feel it's easier to close the deals and get clients to know our work and team better in personal meetings. We have done just two physical meetings in the past year, that too while we were sitting six-seven feet apart from the client. I really want to change that,” he rued.
However, he is positive that 2021 is going to be a good growth year for the agency. “We had clocked a 25 per cent growth in 2019. While 2020 did not turn out to be a good year for numbers, we definitely grew in our skills and popularity. So, I am expecting that this financial year will also bring at least 25 per cent growth for us.”
He is quite excited about some of the projects that they are working on and is also planning to pan out the offerings. “We are also willing to take up some co-partnered media projects with our clients and I am quite excited about that too,” he signed off.
Mumbai, 5th March, 2020: To celebrate International Women’s Day on 8th March, Kotak Mahindra Group (Kotak) today announced the launch of Kotak Silk Loans – a range of attractive rates and special offers across categories specially tailored for women borrowers.
Under Kotak Silk loans, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Kotak Mahindra Prime will give attractive offers on a range of loans catering to a woman’s personal and business requirements including home loans, personal loans, two-wheeler loans, business loans, loan against property and working capital solutions to its existing and new customers.*
Elizabeth Venkataraman, Joint President and Head of Marketing, Kotak Mahindra Bank said, “The embodiment of the Kotak Silk Savings Programme is to empower women in their journey towards financial independence. Today, we are delighted to extend the Silk proposition to loans. More and more women today are confidently managing their twin roles – an anchor at home and a trailblazer outside. Women are entering diverse fields – struggling, surviving, persisting, competing hard and excelling – that is their story. Through Kotak Silk Loans our endeavour is to extend financial support to women in the pursuit of their dreams.”
Further, to celebrate International Women’s Day, Kotak has launched a digital campaign.
Starring PT Usha, the Indian track & field legend, who has inspired a generation of women, Kotak Silk’s #WomenInspireWomen salutes the millions of amazing Indian women who are breaking barriers, overcoming hurdles and being an inspiration to many other women in their journey towards achieving their dreams. Link to the video – #WomenInspireWomen
***
*Kotak Silk Loans are available across the country at Kotak branches and through the website – www.kotak.com. Existing Kotak customers can also apply for Kotak Silk Loans through the Kotak mobile banking app.
Product
Offers for Women#
Home Loans
Lower interest rate – 0.05% p.a. discount on interest rate
Personal Loans
Flat and discounted processing fee of Rs. 999
Two-wheeler Loans
Discounted Flat rate of interest at 8.75% p.a.
Business Loans
Lower interest rate – 0.50% p.a. discount on interest rate
Loan Against Property
Lower interest rate – 0.25% p.a. discount on interest rate
Working Capital Solutions
Lower interest rate – 0.10% p.a. discount on interest rate
Each customer availing a new loan product during this period will also receive special offers on brands such as Forest Essentials, Jaypore, Bagrry’s, Firstcry.com and VLCC (sponsored by the merchants).
#Terms & Conditions apply.
Credit at sole discretion of Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd and subject to guidelines issued by RBI from time to time. Bank may engage the services of marketing agents for the purpose of sourcing loan assets. This is a limited period offer. Available at select locations.
Two-wheeler Loans are offered by Kotak Mahindra Prime Ltd., which is a subsidiary of Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd. Conditions apply. Available at select locations. Credit at the sole discretion of Kotak Mahindra Prime Ltd. and subject to guidelines issued by RBI from time to time.
Loan to Value ratio as prescribed by RBI from time to time. Credit at the sole discretion of the Bank and subject to guidelines issued by RBI from time to time. For location details, visit www.kotak.com.
MUMBAI: Curating the top 50 most valuable brands list in India was an eye-opener in many ways, said Kantar Millward Brown MD Dinesh Kapoor, referring to the valuable insights that brands can gather from the data available to the agency.
Studying the multiple variables that determined on what spectrum of the Top 50 chart it would rank, or whether it qualified at all, revealed the need of the hour for CMOs across categories to build a valuable brand.
This brought Kapoor to enlist the ‘must dos’ of building a strong brand in India. While the core principles echoes what gurus have passed down to the generation next for decades, it’s been adjusted to suit the current socio-economic and political flavour of the country, and how consumers are reacting to it.
Meaningful: With a fast paced economy, some marketers may forget the simplest and essential rule in the book, i.e, to build a meaningful brand that meets the consumer’s need and makes their life better.
Differentiate: When there is competition, and several new products are being launched in every category, it is essential to have a USP, or point of difference. Brands that improved on differentiator grew by 81% higher than brands which failed to differentiate, read a report by Kantar.
Innovation: Citing examples of Bajaj Auto, Kotak, and Airtel, Kapoor explained how differentiation made on top of innovation adds more value to the brands. While Bajaj V launch was a differentiation based on creativity, Kotak tried a unique proposition with its revised interest rates. On the other hand, Airtel has stayed ahead of the curve by setting trends. It is noteworthy that the emphasis to be different is far greater in the Indian market than the global or other Asian markets. 86 per cent of brands that grew on innovation also grew on differentiation, informed Kapoor.
Advertising: Appealing communication is a pillar of brand-building that helps the brand stay salient in the minds of the consumers, says Kapoor. Brand value growth is even greater when meaningfully different brands build salience with great creative advertising.
Brand Love: What comes out of the heady mix of the above mentioned variables is an increase in the brand love index that further helps to multiply a brand’s value.
What makes brand value an important trait to vie for is its direct relation to how the brand performs on the stock market.
“It’s not an assumption that a highly valuable brand is more likely to do well on the stock market. We have substantial data to back up the statement that strong brands generate superior shareholders’ return,” shared Kapoor, adding that a stronger brand is more likely to withstand a tough market situation, and augment revenue growth during favourable times.
MUMBAI: Curating the top 50 most valuable brands list in India was an eye-opener in many ways, said Kantar Millward Brown MD Dinesh Kapoor, referring to the valuable insights that brands can gather from the data available to the agency.
Studying the multiple variables that determined on what spectrum of the Top 50 chart it would rank, or whether it qualified at all, revealed the need of the hour for CMOs across categories to build a valuable brand.
This brought Kapoor to enlist the ‘must dos’ of building a strong brand in India. While the core principles echoes what gurus have passed down to the generation next for decades, it’s been adjusted to suit the current socio-economic and political flavour of the country, and how consumers are reacting to it.
Meaningful: With a fast paced economy, some marketers may forget the simplest and essential rule in the book, i.e, to build a meaningful brand that meets the consumer’s need and makes their life better.
Differentiate: When there is competition, and several new products are being launched in every category, it is essential to have a USP, or point of difference. Brands that improved on differentiator grew by 81% higher than brands which failed to differentiate, read a report by Kantar.
Innovation: Citing examples of Bajaj Auto, Kotak, and Airtel, Kapoor explained how differentiation made on top of innovation adds more value to the brands. While Bajaj V launch was a differentiation based on creativity, Kotak tried a unique proposition with its revised interest rates. On the other hand, Airtel has stayed ahead of the curve by setting trends. It is noteworthy that the emphasis to be different is far greater in the Indian market than the global or other Asian markets. 86 per cent of brands that grew on innovation also grew on differentiation, informed Kapoor.
Advertising: Appealing communication is a pillar of brand-building that helps the brand stay salient in the minds of the consumers, says Kapoor. Brand value growth is even greater when meaningfully different brands build salience with great creative advertising.
Brand Love: What comes out of the heady mix of the above mentioned variables is an increase in the brand love index that further helps to multiply a brand’s value.
What makes brand value an important trait to vie for is its direct relation to how the brand performs on the stock market.
“It’s not an assumption that a highly valuable brand is more likely to do well on the stock market. We have substantial data to back up the statement that strong brands generate superior shareholders’ return,” shared Kapoor, adding that a stronger brand is more likely to withstand a tough market situation, and augment revenue growth during favourable times.
MUMBAI: In a move to help investors power up their equity portfolio, ET Now has taken another investor welfare initiative Market Masters’. The 30-40 minute long tete-a-tete with Kotak AMC MD Nilesh Shah and the channel’s senior editor (stocks) Niraj Shah will be telecast on ET Now on 18 September at 6 pm.
It is a series of on-ground seminars that enables participants to interact with leading market experts and learn from their outlook of the markets. The experts share their perspective on the prevalent market conditions and how to formulate simple yet effective portfolio strategies to grow their wealth.
“Under ‘Market Masters’, we will organize investor camps across the country. We started the camp at Ghatkopar,” Shah said.
Through this initiative, the channel aims at educating and engaging its viewers on various aspects of investing. This initiative will provide insightful recommendations to investors to help them make smart investment decisions.
“This initiative is all about educating and enlightening retail investors on stock markets. Whenever we talk about markets, stocks etc the first name that comes to mind is ET Now,” said Shah.
He also advised investors to take a long term view on the market and take informed investment decisions after careful analysis of stock and companies. Individuals who do not have the time to understand the market should invest in SIP mutual fund and follow asset allocation strategy.
The recorded event was attended by over 400 investors and Shah addressed various investor queries. He also stated that investing was not a passive game and one should be an active investor.
MUMBAI: In a move to help investors power up their equity portfolio, ET Now has taken another investor welfare initiative Market Masters’. The 30-40 minute long tete-a-tete with Kotak AMC MD Nilesh Shah and the channel’s senior editor (stocks) Niraj Shah will be telecast on ET Now on 18 September at 6 pm.
It is a series of on-ground seminars that enables participants to interact with leading market experts and learn from their outlook of the markets. The experts share their perspective on the prevalent market conditions and how to formulate simple yet effective portfolio strategies to grow their wealth.
“Under ‘Market Masters’, we will organize investor camps across the country. We started the camp at Ghatkopar,” Shah said.
Through this initiative, the channel aims at educating and engaging its viewers on various aspects of investing. This initiative will provide insightful recommendations to investors to help them make smart investment decisions.
“This initiative is all about educating and enlightening retail investors on stock markets. Whenever we talk about markets, stocks etc the first name that comes to mind is ET Now,” said Shah.
He also advised investors to take a long term view on the market and take informed investment decisions after careful analysis of stock and companies. Individuals who do not have the time to understand the market should invest in SIP mutual fund and follow asset allocation strategy.
The recorded event was attended by over 400 investors and Shah addressed various investor queries. He also stated that investing was not a passive game and one should be an active investor.
MUMBAI: Publicis announced the appointment of Suraj Pombra as executive vice president for the Publicis Capital Mumbai operations. In his new role Pombra will oversee all operations of the company in Mumbai and will report to Publicis Capital CEO Hemant Misra.
Announcing his appointment Misra said, “Suraj is a seasoned Publicis man and I am delighted to welcome him back to our fold. He will lead a large team and have responsibility for some of our marque accounts like Garnier and Sanofi. I am very confident he will quickly make his mark with the value he will bring for our clients and their business.”
Pombra discovered his attitude and aptitude for advertising two decades ago. In this time, he has sharpened his instincts across a plethora of categories and stewarded many a brand, including Marico, Citibank, Kotak, IndianOil, Bisleri, Park Hotel, Reliance Infrastructure, Meru, Legrand and more. Starting with Trikaya Grey in Kolkata, his tryst with advertising has taken him through DDB/Mudra, JWT, Grey again, Publicis Ambience and even the rare entrepreneurial experience of founding & running a startup agency. Having been there, done that, he returns to Publicis, a place he calls home.
