MAM
AWL brings tech-powered tradition to Rath Yatra with Fortune and Alife
MUMBAI: What do you get when a 12th-century chariot festival meets mixed reality and Kakara Pitha? A Fortune-branded pilgrimage into the future. In a dazzling collision of devotion and digital innovation, AWL Agri Business Ltd. (formerly Adani Wilmar Ltd.) is pulling out all the stops at Rath Yatra 2025, unveiling a seven-element campaign that transforms Puri’s spiritual carnival into an immersive brandscape. From 40-foot installations and live kitchens to VR bhog offerings and anamorphic beach content, this isn’t just festive marketing, it’s a full-blown sensory yatra.
At the heart of it all lies the Fortune Zone, a monumental hub on Grand Road featuring three standout experiences. Devotees can cook virtual mahaprasad using Fortune ingredients in mixed reality, offer it inside a simulated Jagannath Temple, and walk away with a real sample of the same dish. Then there’s a live cooking contest where pilgrims pit their culinary skills against each other in crafting Kakara Pitha, Odisha’s traditional sweet treat.
“We’ve evolved from offering just a VR tour to delivering a full multi-sensory experience that blends faith and food,” said AWL Agri Business Ltd joint president of sales & marketing Mukesh Mishra. “Our hyperlocal lens helps us engage meaningfully, and Rath Yatra is a perfect convergence of our brand’s cultural and culinary ethos.”
Also in the mix is Alife, AWL’s personal care brand, offering a beachside Changing Station for post-dip refreshment and a fleet of Fortune-branded e-rickshaws to ferry devotees around Puri because comfort is the new seva. On Puri beach, a giant LED screen beams anamorphic content, giving digital dazzle to the devotional ambience.
With brands like Fortune and Alife leading the charge, AWL’s campaign exemplifies the next frontier in festival marketing where participation trumps promotion and storytelling lives at the intersection of ritual and tech.
This isn’t just a company showing up at a festival. It’s a brand redesigning the pilgrimage experience, one VR ladle, LED lens, and Kakara Pitha at a time.
Brands
Faber-Castell India appoints Sunaina Haldar as director – marketing
With stints at Tata, SleepyCat and ADF Foods under her belt, Haldar is primed to redraw Faber-Castell’s brand story
MUMBAI: Faber-Castell India has poached Sunaina Haldar from ADF Foods, appointing her director – marketing as the German stationery brand looks to muscle up in a category that is rapidly reinventing itself around creativity and self-expression.
Haldar hit the ground running. “My first couple of weeks have been incredibly energising, understanding consumers, visiting markets, engaging with retailers and immersing myself into the world of Faber-Castell Group,” she said.
She arrives with considerable firepower. At ADF Foods, Haldar ran marketing across India and international markets for a portfolio spanning Ashoka, Aeroplane, Camel and ADF Soul. Before that, she was vice-president – marketing at direct-to-consumer mattress brand SleepyCat, where she helmed brand, content and performance marketing. Her résumé also includes a stint leading marketing, new product development and CRM for Tata SmartFoodz at Tata Consumer Products, no small proving ground.
Between corporate roles, Haldar also operated as a fractional CMO for early-stage startups, building marketing strategy and operational structures from scratch, a signal that she knows how to move fast with limited resources.
With 18 years straddling FMCG, D2C and the startup world, Haldar now takes the reins at a brand that has long owned the classroom but is clearly hungry for the living room. In a stationery market where the pencil has become a lifestyle statement, Faber-Castell has picked someone who knows exactly how to sell that story.
