MAM
Wondrlab appoints Sameet Ali Soni as content lead
Mumbai: A data-driven influencer marketing platform, Wondrlab has appointed Sameet Ali Soni as content lead. He joins from Wunderman Thompson Bangalore, where he was assistant vice-president (AVP) and senior creative director.
At Wondrlab, Sameet will oversee the creative integration and content creation on a large set of key accounts. He will report to the What’s Your Problem’s (WYP) co-founder and CCO Amit Akali. For the record, Wondrlab has acquired WYP in 2020.
Sameet comes with nearly 17 years of experience in advertising, having worked on brands like ITC Foods, Kingfisher, Sony ESPN, Lifestyle, Britannia (digital), Rohan Builders and McDowells.
Speaking in this context, Akali said, “We’ve done away with the 13/14 designations that other agencies have. Our senior-most creative positions are our ‘content leads’ and ‘content directors’. Sameet is someone I’ve worked with at the beginning of his career. Even then, he was a special talent creating the iconic Bingo Mad Angles ‘Board Room’ film.”
“While he brings many more skills with him now, he brings the same love for advertising. The last year (our first at Wondrlab) has been amazing with us winning some of the biggest and most exciting brands. That is looking for the platform first, new-age, truly integrated work. The coming days are full of opportunities and I am sure someone senior and experienced like Sameet and Rahul will help us make the most of it,” he added.
“What’s Your Problem and WondrLab have been doing some wonderful integrated work for all its brands with fresh platform-first ideas. I am excited as I set a path on a new journey and of course, working with my old boss and mentor Amit Akali,” Soni added further.
AD Agencies
The smell that told Mumbaikars which station was next
Tata AIA turns Mumbai’s Parle-G memory into a sharp, city-wise outdoor play
MUMBAI: When a biscuit factory became Mumbai’s unofficial station announcement. Long before smartphone maps and automated announcements, commuters on Mumbai’s Western line relied on their noses. As trains rolled into Vile Parle, compartments filled with the warm, sweet smell of baking biscuits from the Parle-G factory. It was a cue to gather bags, wake dozing children and shuffle towards the door.
Now that memory has been pressed into service by Tata AIA Life Insurance as part of its 25-year anniversary outdoor campaign — a city-by-city salute to the lived moments that shape urban life.
One hoarding, mounted close to the old factory site, reads: “We have been protecting Mumbaikars since Vile Parle smelled of freshly made biscuits.” Spare. Local. Loaded.
The broader campaign, rolled out across major metros, leans hard into contextual storytelling. In Kolkata, it nods to trams. In Pune, to Magarpatta’s transformation. In Bengaluru, to a time before IT parks. In Chennai, to OMR before it led to tech corridors. Each line anchors the brand’s longevity to a shared civic memory.
The Mumbai execution is the most evocative. For decades, the Parle-G factory was more than a production unit. It was a sensory landmark. Residents nearby set their clocks by the factory horn. Office-goers marked their commute by the waft of glucose and flour. When the plant shut, the city lost more than jobs. It lost a rhythm.
By placing the hoarding beside the former factory, the insurer collapses distance between copy and context. The site does half the storytelling. The rest comes from commuters who remember opening steel tiffins packed with Parle-G, or jolting awake as the train slowed.
It is a neat piece of brand positioning. Rather than trumpet balance sheets or policy counts, Tata AIA borrows emotional equity from the city itself. Twenty-five years becomes less a milestone and more a presence — steady, local, embedded.
Outdoor advertising is often a blunt instrument. This one is anything but. It whispers. It remembers. And in doing so, it sells trust without sounding like it is selling at all.
The scent may have faded. The memory has not.
