Brands
Apple signs multi-year deal with Oprah Winfrey
MUMBAI: Remember the Oprah Winfrey show? The unstoppable business woman behind the show has now signed a multi-year content partnership with technology company Apple. Winfrey will work with the iPhone maker to produce TV shows for its forthcoming streaming service.
Winfrey is a renowned media proprietor, talk show host, actress, producer, and philanthropist.
Together, Winfrey and Apple will create original programs that embrace her incomparable ability to connect with audiences around the world. The deal includes making of a film, tv, applications, books and other content that could easily be distributed on Apple’s platform.
Winfrey’s projects will be released as part of a lineup of original content from Apple.
Winfrey’s Harpo Films will own any and all content produced under the Apple partnership, in line with Winfrey’s longtime business model. However, she will continue in her role as chairman and CEO of Discovery Communications-backed cable network OWN.
Apple has stepped up against other OTT giants Netflix and Amazon Prime who have signed multiple celebrities and personalities in the last year. Apart form Winfrey, Apple recently also signed Jennifer Aniston, Reese Witherspoon and Steven Spielberg to reboot its original content plans.
Earlier last week, Nicole Kidman joined hands with Amazon for a first-look film and TV deal.
While Apple’s $1 billion push in original programming is big money, Netflix spent $6.3 billion while Amazon splurged $4.5 billion in 2017.
Brands
Faber-Castell India appoints Sunaina Haldar as director – marketing
With stints at Tata, SleepyCat and ADF Foods under her belt, Haldar is primed to redraw Faber-Castell’s brand story
MUMBAI: Faber-Castell India has poached Sunaina Haldar from ADF Foods, appointing her director – marketing as the German stationery brand looks to muscle up in a category that is rapidly reinventing itself around creativity and self-expression.
Haldar hit the ground running. “My first couple of weeks have been incredibly energising, understanding consumers, visiting markets, engaging with retailers and immersing myself into the world of Faber-Castell Group,” she said.
She arrives with considerable firepower. At ADF Foods, Haldar ran marketing across India and international markets for a portfolio spanning Ashoka, Aeroplane, Camel and ADF Soul. Before that, she was vice-president – marketing at direct-to-consumer mattress brand SleepyCat, where she helmed brand, content and performance marketing. Her résumé also includes a stint leading marketing, new product development and CRM for Tata SmartFoodz at Tata Consumer Products, no small proving ground.
Between corporate roles, Haldar also operated as a fractional CMO for early-stage startups, building marketing strategy and operational structures from scratch, a signal that she knows how to move fast with limited resources.
With 18 years straddling FMCG, D2C and the startup world, Haldar now takes the reins at a brand that has long owned the classroom but is clearly hungry for the living room. In a stationery market where the pencil has become a lifestyle statement, Faber-Castell has picked someone who knows exactly how to sell that story.
