Brands
Unilever threatens to pull the plug on digital advertising
MUMBAI: International major FMCG player Unilever has threatened Facebook and Google that it will withdraw its advertising on the social media platforms if they fail to remove content that creates division in society and promotes hate.
The biggest multinational player said in a conference held at California that, “As one of the largest advertisers in the world, we cannot have an environment where our consumers don’t trust what they see online.”
Unilever’s stern step comes while technology and social media companies are facing major criticism for failing to protect children and to erase fake news, hate speech and extremism.
Unilever chief marketing officer Keith Weed said at the conference that the brand cannot continue to prop up a digital supply chain that delivers over a quarter of their advertising to consumers – which at times is little better than a swamp in terms of its transparency.
While mentioning that such messages are toxic for the society and only take us backward, Weed added, “Fake news, sexism, toxic content aimed at children, terrorists spreading hate messages are all a part of internet now and we have ended up with a million miles from where we thought it would take us.”
He goes on to add, “It is in the digital media industry’s interest to listen and act on this. Before viewers stop viewing, advertisers stop advertising and publishers stop publishing.”
A third of the company’s advertising spend is on the digital medium today and Unilever has decided to cut down on the 3000 ad agencies it uses globally and further cutting costs by making 30 per cent fewer ads. Unilever has promised to boost more ‘responsible content’ that will tackle concerns like gender stereotypes. It will only work with digital networks that agree to use industry standards of ad metrics and improve consumer experience. Discussions with Facebook, Google, Twitter, Amazon and SnapChat are already on.
Facebook and Google are said to account for nearly three-quarters of the total digital advertising in the US. Last year Procter & Gamble (P&G) issued a similar warning before cutting $100 million of its digital ad spend without any negative impact on sales.
On the other hand, in the UK, Facebook and Google have more than 60 per cent of digital advertising and 90 per cent of all new digital spending.
A move like this could adversely impact the digital industry and major advertising agency’s revenue.
Brands
Samsung certifies 1,000 Maharashtra students in AI and coding
The South Korean electronics giant marks its first large-scale skilling push in the state, with women making up nearly half the national programme’s enrolment
PUNE: Samsung has put 1,000 students in Maharashtra through a certified training programme in artificial intelligence and coding, the largest such drive the South Korean electronics company has run in the state and a signal that corporate India’s skilling ambitions are moving well beyond the boardroom brochure.
The certifications were awarded under Samsung Innovation Campus (SIC), the company’s flagship corporate social responsibility programme, which launched in India in 2022 with the stated aim of democratising access to future-technology education. The 1,000 graduates were drawn from four institutions: 127 from Savitribai Phule Pune University, 373 from Pimpri Chinchwad University, 250 from D.Y. Patil University’s Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology and 250 from Anjuman-I-Islam’s Kalsekar Technical Campus. All completed training in either AI or coding and programming, the two disciplines Samsung has identified as the critical pillars of the digital economy.
The programme does not stop at technical training. Soft-skills development and career-readiness modules are baked into the curriculum, a deliberate attempt to close the gap between what universities teach and what employers actually want.
“India’s digital growth story will ultimately be shaped by the quality of its talent pipeline,” said Shubham Mukherjee, head of CSR and corporate communications at Samsung Southwest Asia. “As technologies like AI move from the periphery to the core of industries, skilling must evolve from basic training to building real-world capability. This milestone in Maharashtra reflects how industry and academia can come together to create a future-ready workforce that is both globally competitive and locally relevant.”
The Maharashtra drive sits within a rapidly scaling national effort. Samsung Innovation Campus trained 20,000 young people across India in 2025, hitting its stated target for the year. Women account for 48 per cent of national enrolments, a figure the company cites as evidence of its push for an inclusive technology ecosystem. The programme is implemented in partnership with the Electronics Sector Skills Council of India and the Telecom Sector Skill Council.
Samsung, which is marking 30 years in India this year, runs SIC alongside two other initiatives, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow and Samsung DOST, as part of a broader effort to build what it calls a generation of innovators with both the technical depth and the problem-solving mindset to thrive in a fast-moving digital world.
A thousand certified students is a tidy headline. Whether they find jobs that match their new skills is the harder question, and the one that will ultimately determine whether corporate skilling programmes like this one are genuine pipelines or well-photographed gestures.
