Brands
The Souled Store bags Redwolf to expand its pop culture merchandise empire
MUMBAI: In a move set to reshape India’s pop culture merchandise landscape, the homegrown brand, The Souled Store announced the acquisition of Redwolf, another popular name in the fandom apparel and collectibles market.
The deal brings Redwolf’s founders—Ameya Thakur, Rahul Jaisheel, and Vivek Malhotra—into The Souled Store fold. Their expertise and passion are expected to supercharge the brand’s mission to create more innovative, fan-driven collections.
“Merging with The Souled Store was the next logical step in realising our vision of bringing the best pop culture merchandise to the Indian audience. All three of us are huge pop-culture geeks ourselves and look forward to leveraging the scale provided by The Souled Store to take the brand to greater heights,” said Malhotra.
The Souled Store co-founder Vedang Patel added, “We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Redwolf to The Souled Store family. Their incredible creativity and commitment to providing fandom-inspired products is a perfect fit. This acquisition will strengthen our mission to become the Home of Pop-culture in India. We are excited to co-build this shared vision with the founders of Redwolf.”
Founded on a love for fandom culture, The Souled Store has built a vibrant space where fans can find products celebrating their favourite movies, TV shows, music, and characters. With Redwolf now part of the family, the brand plans to offer an even bigger and better range of exclusive collaborations and creative products.
This partnership brings The Souled Store closer to its ultimate goal: evolving into a global lifestyle brand that speaks to every fan’s soul.
Brands
Google says Gemini AI cuts irrelevant ads by 40 percent
AI driven search and ad tools boost relevance and results for brands.
MUMBAI: In the never ending hunt for the right ad at the right moment, artificial intelligence may finally be sharpening the aim. Google says the integration of its multimodal AI models, Gemini, has reduced irrelevant advertisements across its platforms by 40 percent, as improved query understanding allows ads to match user intent more closely.
Speaking at a roundtable on Thursday, Google vice president of Global Ads Dan Taylor said the company has been steadily deploying Gemini powered upgrades to interpret complex search queries more accurately. “We have been making Gemini based improvements to query understanding at a rate of almost one launch per month over the last two years. As the models improve and our ability to deploy them improves, ad quality continues to get better,” Taylor said.
The improvements come as Google leans deeper into AI driven advertising tools. According to the company, 2025 saw a threefold increase in Gemini generated creative assets produced by advertisers using its AI powered ad solutions.
The company also highlighted how these tools are influencing marketing performance for brands in India.
Insurance marketplace Policybazaar recorded a 28 percent rise in health insurance sales while reducing cost per sale by 23 percent after adopting AI Max, a tool that interprets natural language search queries to improve ad targeting.
Meanwhile, hospitality platform OYO reported 50 percent higher return on ad spend (ROAS) and a 25 percent reduction in cost per acquisition after combining its existing search campaigns with Google’s Performance Max (PMax) advertising campaigns.
Taylor noted that evolving consumer behaviour is also reshaping how brands approach digital advertising. According to Google’s data, 86 percent of shoppers in India using Google Search said they were open to trying new brands or products, suggesting that AI driven discovery tools could increasingly influence purchase decisions.
Beyond advertising, Google is also investing in what it calls agentic commerce, an emerging model where AI agents autonomously assist users in discovering, comparing and purchasing products online.
“Our goal with agentic commerce is twofold, first, to remove the grunt work of shopping so consumers can focus on the fun parts; and second, to work hand in hand with the industry to build the foundations needed to make agentic commerce seamless and secure across the web,” Taylor said.
The push into AI enhanced advertising and commerce comes as Google’s core ads business continues to grow. The company recently reported $82.28 billion in advertising revenue, marking a 13.5 percent year on year increase.
For advertisers navigating an increasingly crowded digital landscape, Google is betting that smarter algorithms and sharper intent signals will make ads feel less like interruptions and more like timely suggestions.
