MAM
Apocalypso Filmworks wins Abbies for Aajtak ad film
NEW DELHI: Aaj Tak has bagged the silver trophy for the best media campaign of the year at the ABBY Awards 2003. Akhil Mishra bagged the best actor award for Aaj Tak campaign and Pradeep Sarkar of Apocalypso Filmworks won the best director awards for the Aaj Tak TVC campaign.
Speaking to indiantelevision.com, veteran ad film maker Pradeep Sarkar says: “The Aajtak team gave us an exhaustive brief and total freedom and liberty to think of the concept. They wanted us to be contemporary but refrain from being newsy. The themes we developed was about the issues facing today’s society.”
Commenting on the channel’s latest achievement, Aajtak CEO G Krishnan was quoted in a press release as saying: “This is yet again an example of the creativity and uniqueness in presentation that we maintain. We are thankful to our viewers, advertisers and other associates who have supported us all along in our endeavours to make Aaj Tak the best news channel in the Indian sub-continent.”
The communication objective of the TVC campaign was to showcase Aaj Tak’s position as an eye-opener and opinion creator through relevant and credible news. The concept of the advertisement had to appeal to the viewers, and since humour has universal appeal, Aaj Tak looked at situations where it could bring out this serious facet of the brand with an underlying sense of humour.
Perhaps, this was the reason why the O&M creative whizkids gave a standing ovation to the film maker Sarkar when he walked up to the stage to receive the award.
Talking about the ad concept, Krishnan further added: “The challenge was to highlight Aaj Tak’s uniqueness of providing credible news at the earliest. The idea of using a black and white, humorous and old style juxtaposed with contemporary themes was to emphasize the changes that it makes in our lives. The ABBY award is a sure sign of the appreciation and success that the ads have achieved.”
“If we had used normal colour, it would have looked like any normal documentary. By using black-n-white background, we managed to raise the curiosity of viewers!” says Sarkar.
ABBY awards are considered to be the most prestigious awards in the advertising industry and around 2400 entries were vying for 17 awards in various categories.
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
