MAM
McDowell’s associates with Brilliant Entertainment to launch ‘Listen’ – Indi-music platform
MUMBAI: The entertainment agency, Brilliant Entertainment Network has launched ‘Listen,’ a platform solely dedicated to promoting music of different genres from across the Indian Sub Continent. Pioneering this initiative, Brilliant Entertainment today kicked off ‘Listen’s’ first eight city concert tour, with McDowells No. 1 as the lead sponsor titled ‘McDowell’s No. 1 – ‘Listen – India Tour 2005’. Postioned as the biggest music tour of India, the tour will feature some of the talented music artists from the sub-continent.
The McDowell’s No. 1 Listen India Tour 2005’s Delhi leg of the India tour will witness eight international artists from the subcontinent performing at the Dilli Haat Grounds in Pitampura in the capital on 1 June. The artists include Rabbi Shergill of ‘Bulla’ fame, Strings (Pakistani Band), homegrown Bombay Vikings, Shibani Kashyap, Indian Idol Abhijeet Sawant, Kailash Kher and Punjabi Pop artist Mika.
This initiative is the first attempt of McDowell’s to associate with a long term Indi- music platform.
Speaking at the launch of LISTEN, Brilliant Entertainment Networks director Raman Raheja said, “Concert business in the West is very organised with established platform in the international music industry. Going by Pollstar estimates, the concert industry segment generated to the tune of 2.5 billion dollars in 2003 and 2.1 billion dollars in 2002 and nearly 1.75 billion dollars in 2001 with the limited but celebrated talent they possess.”
Juxtaposing this against the availability of huge talent pool that the Indian Subcontinent has to offer, the concert industry in this region has the potential to surpass its western counterparts”, Raheja further added.
Speaking on the occasion, McDowell’s North UB COO – spirits division Ashwin Malik said that the brand has been associated with international music artists like Bryan Adams, Mark Knoffler, Enrique Iglesias and many more through the entertainment platform ‘Mera No. 1 Entertainer’. “We are now associating with the ‘Listen India’ platform since many No.1 artists are performing and this music genre has a huge fan following across the country.”
Pegged as the biggest platform created so far to popularise music from the Indian subcontinent, McDowell’s Listen’s India’s first tour will cover 8 cities – Ludhiana, Delhi, Jaipur, Lucknow, Kolkata, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Mumbai.
MAM
Happy Pawdcast launches merchandise with The Souled Store
Season 2 success leads to co-branded line celebrating pet-parent bond.
MUMBAI: The Happy Pawdcast just gave fans something to wag their tails about because when your favourite pet show gets merch, even the couch starts feeling like a runway. Building on the momentum of Season 2 which reached over 14 million pet lovers, clocked more than 20,000 hours of content consumption and engaged over 23,000 users, The Happy Pawdcast has teamed up with The Souled Store for an exclusive co-branded merchandise collection. The line translates the podcast’s emotional core into wearable designs that celebrate the everyday bond between pets and their parents.
Hosted by Sonali Bendre and Icy Behl, Season 2 featured candid conversations with celebrity pet parents including Remo D’Souza, Diana Penty, Kubbra Sait, Rohan Joshi, Karan Wahi, Tusshar Kapoor and Amala Akkineni. The episodes tackled responsible adoption, stray welfare, pet emotional well-being and debunked common care myths, earning strong resonance across digital platforms.
Sonali Bendre said, “Season 2 reaffirmed how deeply people connect with stories around pets, responsibility, and companionship. This collaboration with The Souled Store is a natural extension of that bond, taking the conversations beyond the screen and turning shared emotions into something tangible for pet parents.”
Rose Audio Visuals head of marketing & branded content Megha H Desai added, “With Season 2, The Happy Pawdcast evolved from a content property into a strong, community-led IP. The collaboration with The Souled Store reflects our approach to building meaningful extensions around our shows where audience insight, brand alignment, and scale come together.”
The Souled Store co-founder Vedang Patel noted, “Pet parenting today is as much about identity and expression as it is about care and responsibility. This collaboration allowed us to tap into a deeply engaged, emotionally invested community and co-create designs that feel authentic and accessible.”
Produced by Rosepod (the podcasting division of Rose Audio Visuals), the merchandise marks the podcast’s shift from audio-video content into a broader lifestyle IP, while aligning with The Souled Store’s focus on pop-culture-led, community-first products and its animal welfare initiatives through World For All.
In a pet-parent world where love often comes with a leash and a hoodie, The Happy Pawdcast isn’t just telling stories anymore, it’s letting fans wear them, proving the bond between humans and their fur-babies deserves more than likes, it deserves to be flaunted.
