MAM
Ad reels and recall: Senthil Kumar reveals what set the jury screens ablaze at Goafest 2025
MUMBAI: In a session that played out like a director’s cut of India’s most memorable commercials, VML India CCO Senthil Kumar took the Goafest 2025 audience inside the jury room for a deep dive into what makes an ad truly work. The verdict? If you’d willingly watch it again, it’s doing something right.
Speaking under the session banner ‘What Ignited the Jury Room?’, Kumar opened with a simple litmus test: “The best ad films aren’t just one-watch wonders. A great film has repeat value”.
Kumar walked attendees through a curated list of top-performing ad films that had not just caught the jury’s eye, but had also burned themselves into the audience’s collective memory.
One of the top contenders was the Lahori Zeera commercial. “Every frame had the brand. That’s rare today”, Kumar said, noting how strong visual branding contributed to high recall.
Another winner was the Veeba Desi Chinese spot, which cleverly flipped expectations. “Chinese characters behaving like Indians—it’s fresh, culturally playful, and paired with a sticky soundtrack. That’s what lands”, he said.
He also tipped his hat to the Snickers ad directed by Rohit Shetty. While Kumar admitted it wasn’t a novel idea globally, its execution was unmistakably local and creatively bold. “’Grab a Snickers’ may not be new, but how you grab attention is”, he said.
In the Dream11 campaign, Kumar praised its sharp scripting and cast synergy. “It’s not easy to pull off dialogue-led storytelling with both actors and cricketers, but this one had audiences asking, ‘Aapki team mein kaun hai?’ on loop”.
He rounded off with the Adani campaign highlighting rural electrification. “’Pehle pankha aayega, phir bijli aayegi’ wasn’t just a line, it was a layered narrative of transformation”. Kumar added.
Throughout the session, Kumar emphasised one consistent metric: resonance. “An idea may be clever, but if it doesn’t move you—or make you laugh, pause, or hum—it’s just noise”, he concluded.
Goafest’s jury, he noted, rewarded ads that nailed both craft and clarity, but above all, evoked genuine emotion or reaction. In the scroll-and-skip era, Kumar reminded creatives that the real test of storytelling lies in its staying power.
MAM
WPP appoints Estée Lauder’s Anne-Isabelle Choueiri as chief transformation officer
Former Estée Lauder executive to lead operations, technology and culture overhaul under WPP’s three-year growth plan
LONDON: WPP has appointed Anne-Isabelle Choueiri as chief transformation officer in a newly created role tasked with delivering the group’s Elevate28 strategy.
Choueiri joins from The Estée Lauder Companies, where she led enterprise-wide strategic initiatives, including the “One ELC” operating model and major upgrades to enterprise marketing, data and analytics capabilities. She also led the redesign of enterprise technology teams and served on the company’s AI taskforce, driving AI strategy, adoption and value realisation across the business.
At WPP, she will be responsible for designing, implementing and embedding the operating model behind Elevate28, the company’s three-year growth plan unveiled in February 2026. She will lead efforts to improve innovation, efficiency and integration across WPP’s client offerings, with a focus on delivering agile, outcome-driven solutions and measurable growth.
Choueiri will oversee organisational transformation across the group, working closely with product and enterprise technology teams to deploy AI, data and technology to build new capabilities and improve operational performance. She will also work with the people function to embed cultural change, strengthen an agile performance mindset and support talent development across the organisation.
Before joining Estée Lauder, she held senior roles across consulting and digital agencies, including at Accenture, Masaï (a Bain & Company spin-off), and Kearney, with experience spanning strategy, data and digital marketing transformation.
Cindy Rose, chief executive officer of WPP, said Choueiri brings a strong track record of leading large-scale transformation across operations, technology and culture, adding that her appointment will help accelerate the group’s next phase of growth under Elevate28.
Choueiri said WPP’s strategy represents an ambitious opportunity to reshape how the company operates and delivers for clients, adding that she looks forward to building integrated solutions and fostering a culture of innovation and change.
She will be based in New York and will join WPP’s executive committee.
