MAM
Castrol signs Brett Lee as brand ambassador
BANGALORE: Castrol India today announced the signing of Australian pace bowler Brett Lee as its global brand ambassador for two years.
The speedster’s band ‘White Shoe Theory‘ also launched Castrol’s signature tune for the Castrol Index through a live performance. The ‘White Shoe Theory‘ band comprises the duo of Mick Vawdon and Brett Lee.
The Castrol Signature tune will be played live in all the stadiums where Castrol Index will be shown live during the International Cricket Council (ICC) one day international World Cup 2011 cricket matches that are to commence in the Indian sub-continent on the 19th of this month.
Said Castrol India Vice President Marketing Giriraj Bagri, ”Brett’s signing on as brand ambassador completes our team of high performance cricket brand ambassadors which includes Sachin Tendulkar, the leading ICC ranked all-rounder Shakib Al Hassan and now Brett Lee.”
Initially, Castrol plans to use Lee on digital platforms such as mobile and internet, informed Bagri while speaking with www.indiantelevision.com on the sidelines of the press conference for the above announcements.
“We will be gradually unveiling in a phased manner the different ways that we will be using Brett Lee for brand building. This could include allowing download of the Castrol Index tune by Brett Lee’s band from websites such as youtube.com,” revealed Bagri who also said that the Castrol Index would be present on www.cricket.yahoo.com.
Lee also announced Ashok Kumar from Delhi as the first winner of the ‘Castrol World Cup ka Hero’ consumer promotion.
Castrol recently tied up with the ICC as its official performance partner for the next five years. The Castrol Index is a system to measure performance of players and teams in the context of winning. A one-day international (ODI) version of the Castrol Index was launched in October 2009 ahead of the Champions Trophy.
MAM
Smytten appoints Shishir Varma as CEO of Pulseai Research
Rebranded AI platform scales with 150 plus clients and 30 million users.
MUMBAI: In a world obsessed with what consumers say, Smytten is betting on what they actually do. The company has appointed Shishir Varma as chief executive officer of Pulseai Research, signalling a sharper push into AI-led, behaviour-driven consumer insights. The move comes as Smytten rebrands its insights vertical from Smytten PulseAI to Pulseai Research, marking a shift away from traditional, project-based research towards a more continuous, intelligence-led model.
Varma brings over 30 years of global experience across APAC markets, including India, China and Japan. Most recently managing director, Insights at Kantar Japan, he has built and scaled consumer insight businesses across geographies, including playing a key role in establishing Millward Brown in India. His mandate now: turn Pulseai into a category-defining platform in a space still dominated by surveys and static reports.
The pitch is straightforward but ambitious. Instead of relying on claimed responses, Pulseai Research taps into observed behaviour leveraging Smytten’s ecosystem of 30 million users built over a decade of product discovery, trials and purchases. The idea is to close the long-standing gap between what consumers claim and how they actually behave.
The numbers suggest early traction. In under 18 months, the platform has onboarded over 150 enterprise clients across sectors, pointing to growing demand for faster, more reliable alternatives to legacy research models.
Under the hood, the platform blends behavioural data with AI and large language model-led analysis to deliver real-time sentiment tracking, scalable qualitative insights, faster quantitative studies and always-on brand intelligence. In practical terms, that means compressing research timelines from weeks to days without sacrificing depth.
The ambition extends beyond FMCG. Pulseai Research is positioning itself as a cross-category intelligence layer, spanning auto, education, gadgets and emerging consumer segments anywhere behaviour-rich data can sharpen decision-making.
For Smytten, the leadership hire is less about optics and more about direction. With Varma at the helm, the company is leaning into a simple but powerful premise: in the age of AI, insight isn’t just about asking better questions, it’s about watching more closely.
