MAM
Lowe Lintas and Partners and HUL win at Global Mobile Awards
MUMBAI: Lowe Lintas and Partners along with India’s largest FMCG Company Hindustan Unilever Ltd. have won the Global Mobile Awards under the category- Best Advertising or Marketing on Mobile for their innovative ‘Free mobile Radio’ service- ‘Kan Khajura Tesan’. HUL and Lowe Lintas are amongst one of the 31 winners from 680 entries across the world.
An ‘innovative’ medium that effectively reaches to the rural audience, The ‘Kan Khajura Tesan’ is a ‘Free mobile Radio’ in Bihar that provides users to access entertainment content worth 15 minutes per week. Reaching out to more than 5 million consumers, the channel has now become the biggest radio station in the state that was otherwise termed to be ‘media dark’.
Speaking more about the service, Anaheeta Goenka (Executive Director, Lowe Lintas and Partners, India) said, “For Kan Khajura to take off, we needed people to take the first step and hence our singular task was to drive missed calls. Unlike all other mediums where you push the message out, here the consumer had to first call to even experience the content. The communication strategy was built around making them remember a 10 digit number, and call this number, again and again and again”. Quite a challenge in a day and age where we remember nothing beyond our own mobile numbers!
Deepa Geetakrishnan (President, Creative – Lowe Lintas and Partners) said, “Kan Khajura Tesan was an answer to this task. We needed something surprising and sticky around this innovative mobile channel that would make people want to call it. And from there came the idea of Kan Khajura tesan….the tesan that gets stuck to your ears. A Kan Khajura (Centipede) is an insect that enters the ear, and gets lodged there. It’s quite common in North India.”
To access the content the consumer is required to give a “Missed call” (the call here gets disconnected automatically after the two initial rings) on a given number. He is then called back where some content, which includes an RJ speak, jokes, and Bollywood songs amongst others, is played to him. Hence, giving the entertainment hungry audience exactly what they want.
In today’s age of communication, although it has become easier to reach out to people globally, brands still face a problem in reaching out to the heart of India – the rural population. Currently, about 70% of India’s population resides in rural areas. Hindustan Unilever Ltd, for a while, had been trying to explore this untapped market further. Most of rural India lives in darkness due to lack of electricity, and hence most of rural India is ‘Media dark’. Keeping in mind the tremendous success achieved in Bihar, HUL has launched the campaign in Jharkhand and plans to take it to other states including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan.
Brands
YES Bank hands the keys to SBI veteran Vinay Tonse as it bets on a new era
Former SBI managing director appointed as YES Bank’s new MD and CEO
MUMBAI: YES Bank is done rebuilding. Now it wants to grow. The private sector lender has appointed Vinay Muralidhar Tonse as managing director and chief executive officer-designate, with RBI approval secured and a start date of April 6, 2026 confirmed. The three-year term signals the bank’s intent to shift gears from crisis recovery to full-throttle expansion.
Tonse, 60, is no stranger to scale. Most recently managing director at State Bank of India, he oversaw a retail book of roughly $800bn in deposits and advances, one of the largest in the country. Before that, he ran SBI Mutual Fund from August 2020 to December 2022, a stint that saw assets under management surge from Rs 4.32 lakh crore to Rs 7.32 lakh crore across market cycles. Add stints in Singapore and four years leading SBI’s overseas operations in Osaka, and the incoming chief arrives with a genuinely global CV.
His academic grounding is equally solid: a commerce degree from St Joseph’s College of Commerce, Bengaluru, and a master’s in commerce from Bangalore University.
The appointment follows an extensive search and evaluation process by the bank’s Nomination and Remuneration Committee. NRC chairperson Nandita Gurjar said the committee unanimously backed Tonse, citing his leadership track record, governance credentials and ability to drive the bank’s next phase of transformation.
Non-executive chairman Rama Subramaniam Gandhi was unequivocal. “I am certain that Vinay Tonse, with his vast experience as a senior banker, will propel YES Bank to its next phase of growth,” Gandhi said, adding that the bank remains focused on strengthening its retail and corporate banking franchises and expanding its branch network.
Rajeev Kannan, non-executive director and senior executive at Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, the bank’s largest shareholder, said Tonse’s experience across retail, corporate banking, global markets and asset management positioned him well to lead the lender. SMBC said it looks forward to working with Tonse and the board as YES Bank pursues its ambition of becoming a top-tier private sector lender anchored in strong governance and sustainable growth.
Tonse succeeds Prashant Kumar, who took the helm in March 2020 when YES Bank was in freefall following a severe financial crisis, and spent six years painstakingly stabilising the institution, rebuilding governance and restoring operational scale. Gandhi was generous: “The bank remains indebted to Prashant Kumar, who is responsible for much of what a strong financial powerhouse YES Bank is today.”
Tonse, for his part, struck a purposeful note. “Together with the board and my colleagues, I remain deeply committed to creating long-term value for all our stakeholders,” he said, pledging to build on Kumar’s foundation guided by his personal motto: Make A Difference.
Beyond the balance sheet, Tonse played cricket at college and club level and represented Karnataka in archery at the national championships — sports he credits with teaching him teamwork, situational leadership, discipline and focus. In quieter moments, he reaches for retro Kannada music, classic Hindi songs, and the crooning of Engelbert Humperdinck, Mukesh and Kishore Kumar.
YES Bank has its steady-handed rebuilder in Kumar to thank for survival. Now it has a scale-obsessed growth banker at the wheel. The next chapter starts April 6.
