iWorld
Asian Paints’ collaborates with Disney+ Hotstar’s ‘Home Dancer’ show
KOLKATA: Paint category leader Asian Paints has joined hands with premium online streaming platform Disney+ Hotstar’s dance reality show Home Dancer for a consumer engagement innovation. Through Home Dancer, an online dance competition, Disney+ Hotstar offered dance lovers a unique chance to showcase their moves from the comfort of their homes where each week, participants chose a track on the app and uploaded a video on the microsite. This way, they continued to pursue their passion for dance notwithstanding the lockdown in India.
Asian Paints recently introduced its ‘Safe Painting’ services that aims to provide consumers with a safe painting environment and hassle-free, faster and professional experience. Consumers can now make their cherished space – home – an even more wonderful space as they stay indoors, maintaining social distancing during the current pandemic.
Home Dancer is a unique show, where participants shot their dance videos in their favourite, most important corners of their homes. The show and the ‘Safe Painting’ solutions are never-seen-before innovations born as a necessity of the onset of social distancing. Asian Paints thus saw this as an opportunity to partner with the series via an impactful in-show integration.
Speaking about the campaign, Madison Media chief digital officer Vishal Chinchankar said, “Our strategy was to build awareness about the safety measures of Asian Paints’ new Safe Painting service. Impact properties played a vital in this launch and helped build strong association and create consideration amongst consumers Most of the networks are unable to air any fresh content due to the pandemic, with Disney+ Hotstar’s Home Dancer being one exception. The show and Safe Painting focus strongly on indoors, making the torrid times of social distancing bearable for consumers with uninterrupted service. We believe the synergies matched perfectly for an effective in-show integration that communicates to millions.”
Speaking about the integration, Star and Disney India Ad Sales head Nitin Bawankule said, “With Home Dancer, Disney+ Hotstar has democratised content for viewers in this unprecedented time of social distancing. Asian Paints has empowered consumers by letting them optimize time and get their homes repainted, aligning all social distancing and safety norms. The collaboration of these two brands for this innovation seemed absolutely natural and points to the evolution of marketing hereon.”
The integration played out in Home Dancer’s episode 8, themed around ‘weddings, shows the conversation between the host Karan Wahi and his mother wherein she suggests Karan to give Asian Paints’ ‘Safe Painting’ service a try. The latter part of the episode highlights the quick service from Asian Paints as Karan receives a call from an Asian Paints executive, explaining all the strict safety, hygiene and social distancing measures employed by painters within the ‘Safe Painting’ service. Getting excited about the new initiative, Karan asks the audience to try out the service and signs off informing them about the missed call number.
iWorld
Why Peaky Blinders is one of television’s biggest hits that still deserves more attention
Six seasons, multiple awards and the release of Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man bring the Shelby saga back into the spotlight
In the crowded universe of streaming content, only a handful of shows manage to leave a lasting cultural footprint. Peaky Blinders is overwhelmingly considered one of the biggest global hits of the past decade. Yet many viewers still haven’t fully explored the dark, gripping world of the Shelby family.
Originally produced for the UK’s BBC and later finding a massive global audience through Netflix, the series quietly grew from a British period drama into a worldwide streaming phenomenon.
Created by Steven Knight, the show follows the rise of the Shelby crime family in post-First World War Birmingham. What begins as a gritty street-gang story gradually expands into a sweeping narrative about ambition, politics, power and survival.
At the centre of the saga is Thomas Shelby, portrayed with extraordinary depth by Cillian Murphy. The casting of Murphy is widely regarded as perfect for the role. With piercing eyes, restrained dialogue and an almost hypnotic screen presence, he transforms Shelby into one of the most unforgettable characters in modern screen storytelling.
Murphy’s brilliance lies in his restraint. He rarely shouts or performs theatrically. Instead, a quiet stare, a calculated pause or a subtle shift in expression conveys the emotional storms within the character. Beneath the ruthless gang leader is a war veteran carrying trauma, guilt and loneliness. Murphy captures this complexity with remarkable precision, making Thomas Shelby both terrifying and deeply human.
Beyond its central performance, Peaky Blinders stands out for its unfiltered portrayal of reality. The show does not romanticise crime. Instead, it exposes the harsh social conditions of early 20th-century Britain, from poverty and class struggle to political extremism and the psychological scars left by war.
The series also presents powerful female characters who hold their own within the Shelby empire. Polly Gray, played by Helen McCrory, is the strategic backbone of the family and one of the most formidable figures in the story. Women in the series shape decisions, influence power structures and challenge the rigid social norms of the time.
Across six seasons, the narrative grows dramatically in scale. What begins in the smoky streets of Birmingham evolves into a story involving political conspiracies, fascism and international criminal networks.
The series has also earned significant critical acclaim. It won the BAFTA Television Award for Best Drama Series in 2018 and multiple National Television Awards for Best Drama, cementing its reputation as one of Britain’s most celebrated modern shows.
Another defining feature of the series is its iconic music. The show’s opening theme, Red Right Hand by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, became instantly recognisable and widely associated with the Shelby universe. Combined with a powerful soundtrack featuring artists such as Arctic Monkeys and Radiohead, the music helped shape the show’s dark, stylish identity and became hugely popular among fans.
And the Shelby story is not over yet.
In fact, its legacy is unfolding right now. The long-awaited feature-length continuation, Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man, was released on March 6, 2026, bringing the Shelby universe from streaming screens to cinemas and giving fans a new chapter in the saga.
For viewers who have not yet stepped into this world, the timing could not be better.
Six gripping seasons are ready to binge on Netflix. A new film has just arrived in theatres. And at the heart of it all stands one of the most magnetic performances in modern drama by Cillian Murphy.
So if Peaky Blinders has been sitting on your watchlist for years, this weekend is your moment.
So, by order of the Peaky fookin’ Blinders, consider this your cue to finally step into the ruthless world of Thomas Shelby. Pour yourself a drink, clear your schedule and press the play button. Because when the Peaky Blinders give an order, you listen.
