Week at a glance: AI & advertising; Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover; Whatsapp outage

AI in ad & marketing Part 1 – A $48.8 bn opportunity waiting to be tapped

During Diwali last year, Cadbury had come up with a unique campaign, called ‘Not Just A Cadbury Ad’, which allowed local store owners in India to promote their shops free of cost. The campaign made use of Artificial Intelligence (AI), which allowed the shop owners to create their own custom ads by recreating Shah Rukh Khan’s face and voice to promote their business. The idea was to extend a helping hand to the pandemic-ravaged local shop owners.

Part 2: How do marketers deal with the unethical use of AI?

Will we start seeing AI-generated ads as a cheap alternative to real ads? To paraphrase an infamous quote about Hollywood - “Madison Avenue is the sound of a crowd racing to the site of a lightning strike.” As such, brands - and their marketing partners - have historically always been quick to jump on the latest technology bandwagon (especially if said bandwagon is an EV).

When nostalgia isn’t enough - Why legacy brands find it tough to make a comeback?

In the last two years, we have witnessed many legacy brands taking a new birth. We saw Kelvinator and BPL getting revived in the consumer durables category. Both of them were iconic brands and ruled the market in the 80’s and the 90’s. In both the cases, Reliance Retail was instrumental in bringing them back. Recently Reliance also announced to revive the Pure Drinks brand Campa Cola this Diwali in a market which is ruled by Coke, Thums Up and Pepsi.

Zee-Sony to sell three Hindi channels to allay CCI concerns

Culver Max Entertainment or CME (formerly Sony Pictures Networks India) and Zee Entertainment Enterprises have decided to sell off three Hindi channels, Zee Action, Big Magic, and Zee Classic, in order to address the anti-competitive concerns expressed by the Competition Commission of India (CCI).

T20 WC: As India puts up a strong show, can Star expect an ad windfall?

There is something extra special when arch rivals India and Pakistan clash in any cricket encounter – more so, if it happens to be a World Cup match. The expectations from both the teams are high and it is a pressure game, which will always be watched by millions of cricket followers all over the world. The Sunday (October 23, 2022) match, which was a thriller that India won by 4 wickets in the last ball, pulled in huge viewership.

Gaming companies expect bumper returns from Diwali this year

With more than 9.33 billion mobile games which have been installed in the year 2022, India ranks as the second largest gaming market in the world, recording around 390 million online gamers in the year 2021, with nearly 95 million gamers paying to play. Given the huge potential for gaming, gaming apps and platforms were bullish on Diwali this year, especially real money gaming companies.

Lessons in pharma marketing – How 116-year old Hamdard is leading the way

In an exclusive interaction with Adgully, Suman Varma, CMO, Hamdard Laboratories, speaks about the several brand milestones that the brand has achieved and how they have evolved as a leading Unani brand through strong R&D and continuous innovations – both in the traditional and OTC segments.

CTV is by far the most premium device for OTT viewing: Prabhvir Sahmey

In conversation with Adgully, Prabhvir Sahmey, Senior Director India and South East Asia, Samsung Ads, speaks about the growing adoption of connected TV in India and how advertisers can tap into this growing opportunity, how the advent of 5G can change the connected TV advertising space, and more.

"Vivo’s campaigns are about how imaging tech plays a role in bringing people together"

In conversation with Adgully, Yogendra Sriramula, Head - Brand Strategy, Vivo, India, said “We call the campaign ‘Together with Joy’ because joy is not about in this home or that home, joy is when people are together and you are able to express your feelings and you are bonding with your loved ones.”

Device-level discovery has disrupted the app economy status quo: Elad Natanson

In this sense, device-level discovery has disrupted the app economy status quo – there is nothing stopping smaller developers from becoming the next big thing,” he says in this interview with Adgully.

Elon Musk fires top Twitter executives including CEO Parag Agrawal

Tesla founder Elon Musk has finally taken over Twitter after a month-long saga full of twists and turns. Just after acquiring Twitter, he took those actions that were assumed he'd do ever since the acquisition was being discussed: firing top Twitter executives.

Dabur acquires majority stake in Badshah Masala for Rs 587.52 cr

Dabur is acquiring 51% stake in Badshah for Rs 587.52 crore, less proportionate debt as on the closing date, with the Badshah enterprise being valued at Rs 1,152 crore. This translates to a Revenue multiple of around 4.5x and EBIDTA multiple of around 19.6x of FY2022-23 estimated financials.

WPP records 10.7% growth in India in Q3 2022

WPP has reported +10.3% growth in its Q3 2022 revenue, with LFL revenue growth at +2.7%. Q3 LFL revenue less pass-through costs was at +3.8%. The group reported acceleration of growth on 2019 levels at +10.9% (Q2 +9.7%, Q1 +9.2%).

NBDSA pulls up news channel for violation of Code of Ethics

The News Broadcasting & Digital Standards Authority (NBDSA) has pulled up Hindi news channel News18 India for two complaints received against two separate news debate programmes aired on the channel.

IT Act to be replaced by Digital India Act for safe internet

India is replacing the IT Act with Digital India Act, comprising modern frameworks of laws and regulations. The new rules and regulations will act as a catalyst to make the internet safe for users.

Amul celebrates Rishi Sunak’s rise to the top with smart word play

India has had much to cheer this Diwali – firstly, India’s thrilling win over Pakistan in their ICC T-20 World Cup match, and secondly, Rishi Sunak being made the Prime Minister of UK, the first person of Indian origin and first person of colour to hold this top office.

WhatsApp suffers longest global outage, services now restored

WhatsApp suffered its longest global outage today, when it remained inaccessible for users for well over an hour. Users were unable to send and receive messages in text as well as video in different parts of the world.