iWorld
Facebook’s Ajit Mohan & the new world order
KOLKATA: The SARS Cov2 virus has drastically changed consumer behaviour. Facebook India vice-president & managing director, Ajit Mohan believes that digital influence is not just limited to online buying but offline too.
Speaking at IAMAI's Marketing Conclave, Mohan said that digitally influenced purchases have gone up by 15-20 per cent for some of the largest consumer goods categories in India such as apparel, mobile phones, packaged consumer goods that traditionally had offline chains. Citing a study by Nielsen, he said that before the pandemic, digital marketing was one of the most effective ways to drive offline sales for Mondelez’s chocolates in kirana stores.
“The Covid2019 pandemic has crunched a few years of consumer behaviour change into a few months and weeks. Adtech is one sector that has grown during the pandemic,” he added.
As the festive season nears, Mohan predicted that a huge chunk of purchases is likely to happen online. According to him, video and virtual experiences are going to be at the heart of festive buying this year.
He also shared that voice and video calls across all Facebook apps have doubled while live from Facebook page in India has grown three times in June year-on-year. These consumer trends have led to the launch of products like Reels on Instagram and Room on Facebook.
Speaking about the economic impact, Mohan highlighted that the pandemic is just not a public health emergency but also an economic crisis, which has particularly impacted small businesses across the country. Most of them have shut shop, some are working with reduced workforces, while others are experiencing lower sales.
Mohan said that he believes Facebook has an important role to play in the recovery of small businesses and the economy. And a lot of its energy is focused on how it works not just with MSMEs but with the entire ecosystem that helps in rejuvenating the economy
“It’s very clear that the fundamental behaviour of consumers is in a transition mode. And as marketers, I genuinely believe it will be a mistake on our part to look over the next few months in India as growth returns aggressively. It will also be incorrect to replicate marketing models and playbooks that are no longer relevant. The only way forward is to look at models relevant to the world that is coming out of the crisis,” he concluded.
(It maybe recalled that earlier this year, Facebook invested $5.9 billion for a 9.9 per cent stake in Reliance Jio Platforms. It had announced that it planned to work with the company to empower 60 million small businesses, including mom-and-pop stores in India. A little later JioMart, a joint venture between Reliance Jio Platforms and Reliance Retail (India’s largest retail chain), started to allow customers to track shipments through WhatsApp.)
iWorld
Tips Music CEO Hari Nair to step down
Girish Taurani and Sushant Dalmia to jointly steer the company as the hunt for a new chief begins
MUMBAI: A leadership shuffle is under way at Tips Music. Hari Nair, the company’s chief executive, will step down on April 30 as the music label begins the search for a successor.
The company said Girish Taurani, executive director, and Sushant Dalmia, chief financial officer, will jointly oversee operations during the transition while the board identifies a permanent replacement.
Nair joined Tips Music in 2023 and set about reshaping the veteran music label into a more digital, data-led enterprise. During his tenure, the company secured licensing and partnership deals with global platforms including Sony Music Publishing and TikTok, while renewing agreements with Warner Music Group.
Drawing on earlier experience in technology and entertainment, including a stint at ByteDance, Nair pushed the organisation towards a performance-driven culture. He built a brand partnerships division and introduced proprietary software systems aimed at strengthening digital distribution and data capabilities.
Kumar Taurani, chairman and managing director, credited Nair with embedding a data-led culture within the company and driving revenue growth in line with shareholder commitments.
In his resignation note, Nair said that after helping transition the label into a modern, digitally focused and process-driven organisation, the time had come to pursue his next leadership challenge.
The leadership change comes as the broader Tips Films group shows signs of financial stabilisation. In the third quarter of FY26 the company reported a net loss of Rs 2.86 crore, narrowing sharply from Rs 14.2 crore in the previous quarter. For the nine months ended December, losses stood at Rs 12.37 crore.
Yet revenue told a more volatile story. Income from operations slid to Rs 4 crore in Q3 FY26 from Rs 56 crore in the preceding quarter, taking total operating income to Rs 4.56 crore.
For a company built on a catalogue of more than 34,000 tracks and decades of Bollywood hits, the next chief will inherit both a digital engine and a volatile music market. The playlist may be familiar, but the next act at Tips Music is only just beginning.
