iWorld
ALTBalaji creates many firsts with its marketing campaign for latest series Booo-Sabki Phategi
MUMBAI: India’s leading home-grown OTT platform, ALTBalaji has been going full throttle in marketing its latest web-series, Booo-Sabki Phategi. Starring Tusshar Kapoor, Mallika Sherawat, Krushna Abhishek, Sanjay Mishra, Kiku Sharda amongst many others, the series has been garnering a positive response ever since its announcement. The platform not only has gone all guns blazing with its promotions, but has also sketched an interesting 360- degree awareness campaign, that has grabbed eyeballs aplenty.
Constantly in the public eye for its unique marketing campaigns, ALTBalaji, for the promotion of its latest horror comedy web-series, has associated with electronics retail store chain Vijay Sales for in-store branding of the series. The trailer of Booo-Sabki Phategi will be playing on 100 screens at each of the 80+ Vijay Sales stores across metros. This strategic alliance makes ALTBalaji the first-ever OTT platform to explore in-store branding for a web-series, creating visibility to a captive high networth audience, maximising brand recall and business ROI. Speaking about firsts, the series became the first ever web series to be promoted on the popular ‘The Kapil Sharma Show’. With an extensive media push across mediums, the poster of the series grabbed the attention of viewers through multiple billboards placed across the metro cities.
The campaign also included extensive television promotions tapping into the music and news genres widely. As a part of this campaign, the series pioneered unique associations with broadcast channels like India TV to catch the pulse of the Hindi heartland; 9XM music to tap into the youth-based audience. With an intent to further extend the reach of the brand-new show and engage with local audiences, ALTBalaji also roped in cable TV operators across tier 2 & 3 cities of India, to air the trailer of the web-series.
Engaging with millennial audiences on their preferred platforms, ALTBalaji collaborated with content creators across Instagram and TikTok to drive audience engagement on funny dialogues and moments. The tactic has gone viral and is now being picked up organically by multiple influencers.
The trailer went viral and received more than 40 million views on Instagram and an organic reach of 25 Million views on YouTube within 3 days of the launch. With continuous support from bollywood celebrities like Varun Dhawan, Aftab Shivdasani, Celina Jaitely etc, who also loved and shared the trailer.
Within a few days of the launch fans have posted many memes for the web series which have also appeared on top meme pages like Dekh Bhai, Bcbilli, Real Shit Gyaan.
Special quirky and humorous dialogues have been created and seeded amongst Tik Tok influencers to create a cult for ‘Booo’ dialogues.
Commenting on the unique marketing strategy, Divya Dixit, Sr. VP and Head Marketing, ALTBalaji says, “This is the first time, we at ALTBalaji have explored the horror comedy genre which has never been done before for an Indian web-series on the OTT space. Booo… Sabki Phategi is a series which marks its foray into a whole lot of firsts. From being a digital debut for two fine actors, like Tusshar Kapoor and Mallika Sherawat, to being the first series to integrate with ‘The Kapil Sharma Show’ and in-store branding association with Vijay Sales, it has seen it all. Ensuring it receives the required uptake from our audience, we sketched out a robust marketing strategy that penetrates masses of our country. It is good to see audiences appreciating the approach and the show.”
iWorld
Meta plans 8,000 layoffs in new AI-led restructuring wave
First phase from May 20 may cut 10 per cent workforce amid AI pivot.
MUMBAI: At Meta, the future may be artificial but the cuts are very real. The social media giant is reportedly preparing a fresh round of layoffs, with an initial wave expected to impact around 8,000 employees as it doubles down on its artificial intelligence ambitions. According to a Reuters report, the first phase of job cuts is slated to begin on May 20, targeting roughly 10 per cent of Meta’s global workforce. With nearly 79,000 employees on its rolls as of December 31, the move marks one of the company’s most significant workforce reductions in recent years.
And this may only be the beginning. Sources indicate that additional layoffs are being planned for the second half of the year, although the scale and timing remain fluid, likely to be shaped by how Meta’s AI capabilities evolve in the coming months. Earlier reports had suggested that total cuts in 2026 could reach 20 per cent or more of its workforce.
The restructuring comes as chief executive Mark Zuckerberg continues to steer the company towards an AI-first operating model, committing hundreds of billions of dollars to the transition. Internally, this shift is already visible: teams within Reality Labs have been reorganised, engineers have been moved into a newly formed Applied AI unit, and a Meta Small Business division has been created to align with broader structural changes.
The trend is hardly isolated. Across the tech sector, companies are trimming headcount while investing aggressively in automation. Amazon, for instance, has reportedly cut around 30,000 corporate roles nearly 10 per cent of its white-collar workforce citing efficiency gains driven by AI. Data from Layoffs.fyi shows over 73,000 tech employees have already lost jobs this year, compared with 153,000 in all of 2024.
For Meta, the move echoes its earlier “year of efficiency” in 2022–23, when about 21,000 roles were eliminated amid slowing growth and market pressures. This time, however, the backdrop is different. The company is financially stronger, generating over $200 billion in revenue and $60 billion in profit last year, with shares up 3.68 per cent year-to-date though still below last summer’s peak.
That contrast underlines the shift underway. These layoffs are less about survival and more about reinvention. As Meta restructures itself around AI from autonomous coding agents to advanced machine learning systems, the question is no longer whether the company will change, but how many roles will be left unchanged when it does.
