MAM
Ad Tech ’17 expects 6500 attendees from 31 nations
MUMBAI: Bringing the marketing, technology and media communities together Ad Tech 2017 — one of India’s leading marketing and media technology event — is all set for the two-day event to be held on 9 and 10 March at the Leela Ambience, Gurgaon.
Xapads Media is the Gold Sponsor in Ad tech 2017. The digital carnival brings to you new impulses, latest tech innovations and industry trends to propel you to stay ahead of the competition.
With the theme of the conference “Accelerating The Evolution”, the event includes discussion on IoT, Artificial Intelligence, exploring new strategies, analyzing new initiatives and also techniques being adopted to increase efficiencies on subjects like Programmatic, mobile, Data Analytics, CRM and more.
The event is expected to be attended by over 6500 leading brands, media agencies, technology firms, and investors from India and from over 31 countries. The event will bring the smartest techno innovations and people from marketing, technology and media communities come together to share new ways of thinking, build strong partnerships, and define new strategies to compete in an ever-changing marketplace.
Xapads Media CEO Nitin Gupta said, “Nowadays, technology is playing a vital role in every marketing campaign. Xapads Media helps in empowering their clients with expressive bid potentials in the market, offer full channel attribution, brand safety and provides real-time reporting that demonstrates consumer’s journey from impression to conversion. The platform offers to understand the consumers in a better way with all possible dimensions.”
As part of the sponsorship, Xapads Media will be organising ‘The big networking bash’ and ‘Pub Crawl’ – a platform which will help the participants, meet & network with their peers & industry professionals.
MAM
VML India lands two finalist spots at Cairns Hatchlings 2026
The Mumbai agency is back in Australia with two teams, a UN brief and 24 hours to impress
MUMBAI: VML India is heading to Australia again. The Mumbai-based creative agency has secured two finalist spots at the Cairns Hatchlings 2026 competition, one in the Audio category and one in Design, making it the only Indian agency to have reached the finals in both editions of the contest since its launch in 2025.
Four people will make the trip. Senior copywriter Shilpi Dey and senior art director Raj Thakkar will compete in Audio. Art directors Shabbir and Shruti Negi will go head-to-head with the world’s best in Design. The finals take place at the Cairns Convention Centre from 13th May, culminating in an awards ceremony on 15th May.
The work that got them there is worth examining. For the Audio category, Dey and Thakkar tackled a brief for LIVE LIKE MMAD with a campaign called Inner Voice, Interrupted. Using spatial audio techniques, the campaign recreates the overwhelming self-doubt that descends after a long workday, physically panning negative thoughts left and right before cutting the noise entirely to reveal a confident inner voice. Strategically targeted at commuters via Spotify during evening rush hours, the campaign reframes the hours after work as an opportunity for personal growth and charitable action.
For the Design category, Shabbir and Negi worked on a brief for Canteen’s Bandanna Day, a campaign highlighting how cancer pushes teenagers out of their own defining moments. Using a pixelated design language to create stark contrast between a blurred world of isolation and a focused world of connection, the campaign, titled The Flipside of Cancer, shows teenagers fading into the background of birthdays, skateparks and school proms. As a Canteen bandanna appears, the blur flips and the teenager snaps back into sharp focus.
Kalpesh Patankar, group chief creative officer of VML India, made no attempt to disguise his satisfaction. “We are immensely proud to see our teams consistently excel on the Cairns Hatchlings platform since its inception,” he said. “They have masterfully tackled challenging briefs across diverse categories, demonstrating both layered storytelling and a unique creative approach. This exceptional teamwork is truly inspiring.”
Dey and Thakkar, returning to the finals after last year’s run, were candid about the demands of the audio medium. “It’s one of the most demanding mediums, where we only have a few seconds to capture a listener’s world with sound alone, so absolute clarity is essential,” they said. “The true measure of creative work is its ability to create positive change, and our audio submission was made to help those who need it most while encouraging people to silence the inner voices that hold them back.”
Shabbir and Negi, competing in Design for the first time, described the experience as “a completely different beast.” “We see it as an opportunity to showcase our expertise, raise the bar, and challenge ourselves in new ways, while also learning from creative minds from across the globe,” they said.
In Australia, the four finalists will face a live 24-hour brief from the United Nations before presenting in a live pitch session. Twenty-four hours, one brief, one shot. VML India has been here before. It knows exactly what is at stake.
