MUMBAI: After over 15 years of sharpening Victorinox India’s digital chops, Keval Parekh has officially levelled up—taking charge as general manager – eBusiness at the premium Swiss brand’s Indian operations.
A mainstay at Victorinox since 2010, Parekh has played a pivotal role in scaling the brand’s online presence—liaising with e-commerce giants, crafting sleek digital campaigns, and securing B2B deals with multinational corporates. From handling marketplace strategy to steering website development, he’s been the digital Swiss army knife the brand needed.
Before his Victorinox innings, Parekh built his financial edge at ICICI Bank, where he drove forex solutions for multinationals and managed rural micro-banking initiatives. Earlier stints at Kewal Kiran Clothing and Print Electronics gave him his grounding in retail and B2B sales.
Now, as GM – eBusiness, Parekh’s challenge will be to take Victorinox’s digital operations to the next gear—navigating a cluttered marketplace with the brand’s signature precision and flair.
The message is clear: Victorinox isn’t just about sharp blades—it’s now about sharper digital growth.
MUMBAI: Spotify has cranked up the volume on success, wrapping up 2024 with a Q4 that hit all the right notes. The music streaming powerhouse saw nearly every key metric outperform expectations, proving that when it comes to growth, Spotify is playing a chart-topping hit.
The platform’s monthly active users (MAUs) surged to 675 million, marking a 12 per cent year-on-year (YoY) increase, while premium subscribers climbed 11 per cent to 263 million. Clearly, more people than ever are hitting play on Spotify’s offerings, and the company isn’t skipping a beat.
Revenue swelled to €4.24 billion, reflecting a 16 per cent YoY increase, with both premium and ad-supported segments driving the momentum. The premium segment alone raked in €3.7 billion, up 17 per cent, fueled by strong subscriber growth and an uptick in average revenue per user (ARPU). Meanwhile, ad-supported revenue reached €537 million, a seven per cent annual rise, even as the global ad market faced turbulence.
Spotify’s advertising business continued its ascent, with both music and podcast ad revenue showing solid gains. However, pricing softness in some regions tempered overall ad growth. Automated sales channels played a pivotal role in pushing ad revenue higher, especially in fast-growing markets. The ad-supported gross margin rose to 15.1 per cent, an increase of 351 basis points (bps) YoY, reflecting smarter monetisation strategies and enhanced content efficiencies.
Not to be outdone, Spotify’s gross margin soared to 32.2 per cent, a resounding 555 bps increase YoY. And for the real showstopper: the company recorded an operating income of €477 million—its highest ever—securing its first full year of operating profitability.
In the realm of free cash flow (FCF), Spotify turned the dial all the way up. The company generated €877 million in Q4, pushing its total FCF for 2024 to a record-breaking €2.3 billion. That’s a lot of cash dancing to the beat of Spotify’s success.
With the company in full growth mode and its financials singing a happy tune, 2025 looks like another year where Spotify will keep the hits—and the numbers—rolling.
MUMBAI: Bacchus would surely approve. As would Dionsyus. One, the Roman, the other the Greek god of wine. Sula Vineyards informed the Bombay stock exchange on 14 January that its own brands are doing very well in Q3FY2025 thank you.
Its Elite and Premium portfolio recorded a six per cent year on year growth, while iconic brands like The Source and Rasa showed double digit growth.
Its wine tourism business too generated a fancy uptick, recording the highest ever Q3 revenue, led by higher spend per guest and strong occupancy rates.
Sula said it was looking forward to the SulaFest in Q4 FY25 with acts such as Divine, Ritviz x Karan Kanchan, Oaff & Savera, When Chai Met Toast, Dualist Inquiry, and Madboy/Mink already booked for it. Advance ticket sales have been storog, and the company is looking forward to launch its Sula cans during the Sula Festival.
Mumbai: For the mushy lover in me, alphabetically, ‘L’ stands for ‘Love’, then what does ‘S’ stand for? According to the new campaign of Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk, ‘S’ stands for ‘Love’. Some days back, Mondelez India, which is a part of Mondelez International, a multinational confectionery, food holding, beverage and snack company revamped the look and shape of its flagship premium chocolate, ‘Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk’ through an elaborate digital campaign.
The campaign, which has been put in place by Ogilvy India, opens with various renditions of love amongst couples, and shows the progression of how Cadbury Dairy Milk (CDM) Silk as a name has now been revamped to a symbol of love – ‘S for Silk’, how from a letter it now holds the infinity of love (the infinity sign gets converted inversely into the shape of an ‘S’), and how with a new look and shape of the brand, one could indulge in the new language of love.
Ever since its launch in 2010, Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk has continued to cater to the young generation through its personalised innovations and heartfelt messaging. “Over the years, the brand underwent a few rounds of packaging upgrades while remaining largely consistent in terms of brand architecture and personality. But for the first time, Silk is undergoing a bold visual identity upgrade to further strengthen its consumer connect and dial up premiumness,” reveals Mondelez India vice president of marketing Anil Viswanathan.
CDM Silk is undoubtedly one of the leading products from Mondelez’s portfolio. Talking about the market share that the brand CDM Silk holds in the chocolate segment, Viswanathan adds, “CDM Silk virtually created the premium segment in the chocolate category. It currently holds approximately 74 per cent share of the premium segment within the chocolate category (as per MAT 20 Nielsen data).”
The revamped look, co-incidentally, makes it just in time for the festive season
Considering that CDM Silk is one of the most loved brands in the country currently, Mondelez’s detailed research led to the refurbishment of the look and shape of the brand. Viswanathan emphasised, “Over the last decade, Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk has been synonymous with the celebration of young love. The new generation is constantly on the lookout for richer, innovative and fulfilling experiences that make their everyday moments special. And the change in packaging was done to manifest this expectation and the brand’s promise to offer the ultimate premium indulgent experience visually as well.”
The exuberant packaging exhibits vibrant colors to highlight variants along with tempting visuals that signify premium indulgence. Along with this, the refreshed mould designs carry an ‘S’ engraving across every cube of the silk bar as part of its holistic design revamp strategy. “Perfectly embodying the role of CDM Silk as the most special chocolate for all special occasions through design and the proposition for Love’,” points out Viswanathan.
The new look and shape of CDM Silk, co-incidentally, are timely for the festive season. Talking about whether the move was intended to be this way, Viswanathan clarifies, “Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk is loved by consumers all year round, but it enjoys incremental love, especially during special occasions. However, the timing was aligned from the perspective of our brand plans and goals rather than just targeting the festive season, in the hope of making our consumer’s ‘me’ and ‘we’ moments even more special.”
The creative thought and execution
Having a chat with the creative agency behind the campaign and talking about the new ‘S’ for Love proposition for CDM Silk, Ogilvy India chief creative officers Kainaz Karmakar and Harshad Rajadhyaksha say, “Cadbury Dairy Milk Silk has always been about young, innocent love. The bold new packaging design now has a single letter ‘S’ standing out in gold. We wanted to create a campaign line that not only captures the essence of what Silk stands for but also stays memorable. ‘S’ for Love does that beautifully.”
As we all know, CDM Silk’s brand positioning has always been about love and romance, since its inception and clearly, it continues to be so. Could there be any particular reason behind that? “CDM Silk is a premium chocolate, a special formulation that is more of an experience than just a new taste,” asserts Rajadhyaksha.
Delving further into the creative thought of the campaign, Karmakar says,“’S’ for Love is a campaign that reinstates the relationship CDM Silk has with love. The brand implements every effort to make love special. With ‘S’ for Love, we want every couple to understand that if someone has gifted you a CDM Silk, it is a gesture of love.”
I first saw the new look and shape campaign of CDM Silk on Spotify, and I simply loved it! Karmakar and Rajadhyaksha chime that they equally loved creating the campaign too. Mondelez experiments with various types of media for CDM Silk and talking about the execution of the campaign, they say that the campaign has a digital as well as OOH spectrum. “So apart from the launch of video and outdoors, we have exciting influencer activations and a host of social media engagements coming up.” They add that the campaign also has a phase II with a TVC and a subsequent digital campaign around it that the team is super-excited about. Followed by a high decibel 360-degree marketing campaign which introduced the identity of the brand, the campaign is set to utilise multi-media robustly till the end of 2022.
Strategy forward and innovations
Viswanathan seems well-focused on the way forward for the brand. “We want to stand for the ultimate premium indulgent experience, not just within the category but in our consumer’s world. Thus, our efforts are geared towards continuously turning more and more consumers into CDM Silk lovers – increasing market penetration on the back of elevated brand and product experiences,” he mentions.
Discussing the innovations that one could look forward to about the brand CDM Silk, Viswanathan explains, “With consumer-centricity at its core, Mondelez India believes in empowering consumers with more choice, driven through unique innovations across brands. Thus, over the last decade, the brand has pioneered first-to-market product innovations and introduced new eating experiences in the form of Silk Bubbly Bubblegum, Silk Mousse, Silk Red Velvet Oreo, etc. As the consumer palate continues to evolve with exposure to emerging trends and products, we aim to adapt and accelerate the innovation engine to match the growing expectations.”
I’m all set to dive into the enticing experience of the new CDM Silk, and Viswanathan only avows further on a concluding note, “You will hear more from us on this in the future.”
MUMBAI: 4K-SAT, the Ultra-HD channel operated by Asia’s premier satellite operator Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. Ltd. (AsiaSat), will be broadcasting premium extreme and outdoor content from XTreme Video on AsiaSat 4.
XTreme Video is producing the best 4K content for extreme sports fans worldwide. Its UHD content on 4K-SAT will include some of the most stunning extreme and outdoor content, such as the successful mountain biking series ‘MTB Insights’ and the world’s wildest freestyle motocross show ‘Masters of Dirt’.
“The brilliance of 4K definition truly comes into its own when the subject matter is as visually captivating as extreme and outdoor programming. We’re committed to bringing the highest quality programming to audiences around the globe, via partnerships with platforms, broadcasters and partners like AsiaSat,” said Joe Nilsson, senior director of business
“XTreme Video offers exciting, adrenaline pumping programs that are very popular amongst viewers of all ages that are interested in extreme sports. We want to bring an immersive quality viewing experience to viewers via our platform on AsiaSat 4,” said Sabrina Cubbon, vice president, marketing and global accounts of AsiaSat.
‘4K-SAT’ continues to impress major TV operators and viewers across the region with unique and compelling UHD content in fashion, lifestyle, nature, movies, TV series, documentaries, extreme sports and technology.
Since 1994, XTreme has been the home of independent creators capturing and documenting the culture, locations and stories of extreme activities. Asia Satellite Telecommunications, the leading satellite operator in Asia, serves over two-thirds of the world’s population with its six satellites.
MUMBAI: 4K-SAT, the Ultra-HD channel operated by Asia’s premier satellite operator Asia Satellite Telecommunications Co. Ltd. (AsiaSat), will be broadcasting premium extreme and outdoor content from XTreme Video on AsiaSat 4.
XTreme Video is producing the best 4K content for extreme sports fans worldwide. Its UHD content on 4K-SAT will include some of the most stunning extreme and outdoor content, such as the successful mountain biking series ‘MTB Insights’ and the world’s wildest freestyle motocross show ‘Masters of Dirt’.
“The brilliance of 4K definition truly comes into its own when the subject matter is as visually captivating as extreme and outdoor programming. We’re committed to bringing the highest quality programming to audiences around the globe, via partnerships with platforms, broadcasters and partners like AsiaSat,” said Joe Nilsson, senior director of business
“XTreme Video offers exciting, adrenaline pumping programs that are very popular amongst viewers of all ages that are interested in extreme sports. We want to bring an immersive quality viewing experience to viewers via our platform on AsiaSat 4,” said Sabrina Cubbon, vice president, marketing and global accounts of AsiaSat.
‘4K-SAT’ continues to impress major TV operators and viewers across the region with unique and compelling UHD content in fashion, lifestyle, nature, movies, TV series, documentaries, extreme sports and technology.
Since 1994, XTreme has been the home of independent creators capturing and documenting the culture, locations and stories of extreme activities. Asia Satellite Telecommunications, the leading satellite operator in Asia, serves over two-thirds of the world’s population with its six satellites.
NEW DELHI: BoxTV, Times Internet’s on-demand video service, has recently integrated mobile payments on its platform and introduced multiple subscription packs offering a range of plans from a super small three-day plan (weekend pack), seven day plan (week pack), 15 day pack (fortnight pack) all the way up to an yearly pack.
Data on viewership patterns indicates that a lot of online content consumption happens on weekends and BoxTV’s weekend pack makes it easy for people to watch premium content without paying for an entire month. The mobile subscription plans also enable people without credit cards to buy a subscription plan easily on BoxTV.
BoxTV has integrated a seamless process for mobile payment for smaller duration packs of three, seven and 15 days, which allows users to pay directly from their mobile phones. The prices range from Rs 49 (for a three day pack) to Rs 99 (seven day pack) and Rs 150 (15 day pack). All a customer needs to do is to select the plan and input his or her mobile numbers on the BoxTV website. The user receives a one-time password which once submitted, activates the plan for the given duration. The process does not require any credit information to watch the premium content available on BoxTV at any time. The payment will be charged to the customer’s mobile bill or deducted from his balance.
For the long-term users, there are multiple plans available which range from Rs 199 for a monthly plan to a yearly plan priced at Rs 1499. For these plans, users will need to subscribe using their credit cards on BoxTV. This provides a lot more flexibility to select a plan which best caters to their individual requirements.
“The BoxTV team is constantly working towards increasing customer satisfaction and improving overall experience, be it by introducing newer features on an ongoing basis or provides product flexibility by incorporating flexible price packs. Since inception, we received several requests from our users to provide multiple plans and payment options and that is exactly what we have introduced. With the introduction of new subscription packs BoxTV service will cater to all segments of users looking for suitable service, which provides flexibility in terms of payment and a seamless movie watching experience. The mobile payments will allow users without credit cards to watch premium content on BoxTV thereby increasing our overall user-base,” said BoxTV business head Pandurang Nayak.
