Author: Kashmeera Sambamurthy

Driverless pods as mobile hotel rooms, anyone?: EaseMyTrip’s Prashant Pitti on futuristic travel trends and AI

Prashant Pitti, co-founder of EaseMyTrip.

Prashant Pitti shares that almost 90 percent of all holiday packages are still booked either via a phone call or through an offline travel agent. Generative AI, such as ChatGPT and other tools, can work wonderfully to create highly customized itineraries based on people’s needs.

Havas India launches global talent communications agency Havas People

If you pay people well, if you pay people the fair wage, the data quality also seems to improve. (Representative Image: Intricate Explorer via Unsplash)

Headquartered out of London, the agency will become part of Havas Creative Network India, and will add to the creative network’s repertoire like Havas Worldwide India (creative), Havas CX (customer experience), Think Design (UI/UX), Conran Design Group Mumbai (brand design), Shobiz Havas (experiential), and Havas QED (digital) in India.

DD Sports bags television rights for FIFA Women’s World Cup 2023

DD Sports also secured the television broadcast rights in India for FIFA Women's World Cup 2023. (Representative Image: Fauzan Saari via Unsplash)

This event will now be brought to millions of homes across India, courtesy to the strategic sub-licensing by US-based 1Stadia, specialising in technological advancements in the world of sports and media rights.

Seeing marriage between performance marketing and AI: Castrol’s Jaya Jamrani

As per Jaya Jamrani, vice president - marketing, Castrol, "The core fundamentals of marketing -- about being relevant to the consumer, playing a role in the life of the consumer, and adding value as a brand – always remain."

Recently, Castrol launched a campaign ‘Badhte Raho Aaage’. In a conversation with Storyboard18, Jaya Jamrani, vice president – marketing, Castrol, spoke about the new campaign and its genesis. She believes fearless thinking and challenging the status quo are the key to good campaigns.

Network18’s TV News business beats industry trends, registers 26% revenue growth in Q1

BARC data on the assembly elections counting day is slated for release on Thursday, 3rd December 2023, and News18 India stands poised to further solidify its position as the unrivalled leader in viewership and comprehensive coverage.

India’s largest TV news network registered a revenue of Rs 337 crore in the first quarter of current fiscal, as compared to Rs 266 crore in the same period last fiscal.

Network18 Media & Investments Q1 revenues jump 142% to Rs 3,239 cr

The highlight of the quarter was JioCinema, which set new benchmarks for IPL streaming. Nearly 450 million viewers tuned in to JioCinema to watch IPL, delivering a total of 17 billion video views with an average watch-time of more than 60 minutes per user per match. (Image source: Moneycontrol)

Network18 Q1: The company said its TV News network delivered strong growth in revenue driven by leadership in key markets as its channels continue to be number 1 in the Hindi, English and Business news genres.

India’s online B2B marketplace has a $200 billion opportunity

As per the report, factors like rising internet penetration, growth of digital infrastructure, favourable regulatory policies and a conducive cross-border environment will drive the exponential growth in India's B2B online marketplaces. (Representative Image: Bastian Riccardi via Unsplash)

Highlights from a report by Bessemer Venture Partners states that the next phase of growth in India’s digital economy will come from B2B marketplaces.

Young Indians are going on a shopping spree on social media. Here’s why and how

The study highlights that brands can prepare for pre-festive excitement and beyond by tapping into category-specific user insights to craft tailored experiences like special offers and engaging content. (Representative Image: Erik Mclean vis Unsplash)

According to ‘The next-gen social commerce playbook’ developed by Havas Media Network in partnership with Snap Inc., 94 percent of social media users in India have made apparel purchases on/via social media.

Sleepwell’s parent company to acquire rival brand Kurlon for Rs 2,150 crore

Talking about Punit Goenka’s role in the new company, the order had said, “That very role in ZEEL is under question and therefore, till the final outcome of the proceedings in the instant matter, it would be appropriate that he is not part of the management of ZEEL or any corporate avatar of it.”

Sheela Foam, the maker of popular mattress brand Sleepwell also plans to get a 35 percent stake in House of Kieraya Private Ltd, which owns rental startup Furlenco, for Rs 300 crore.

Data protection bill may empower users to ask platforms to delete all of their data

In regards to deletion of user data, under the previous (2022) draft, if a user in India asks a major social media platform to delete data stored with them, the platforms could have just opted to only erase their personal data, and keep the rest of the data in a deanonymised format. (Representative Image: Towfiqu barbhuiya via Unsplash)

According to the 2022 draft of the Digital Personal Data Protection Bill, if a user asks a platform to delete their data stored with it, the platform could have just erased only the user’s personal data and kept the rest of it in a deanonymised format.