Digital
Are digital metrics telling the truth? BFSI leaders take a closer look
MUMBAI: The numbers look good—but are they real? That’s the question banking and financial services marketers will confront at a closed-door roundtable in Mumbai on 12th December. Titled “Breaking the Myths: The Truth About Digital ROI”, the session aims to strip away the gloss from dashboard metrics and expose the distortions lurking beneath: invalid traffic, inflated engagements and unverified conversions that make it nearly impossible to tell what’s actually working.
In an industry grappling with rising acquisition costs and increasingly complex customer journeys, the stakes have never been higher. Yet too many campaigns are measured by surface-level vanity metrics (impressions, clicks, reach) that tell marketers little about genuine performance. The roundtable will challenge that orthodoxy, pushing participants to dig deeper and focus on validated, down-the-funnel outcomes that translate spend into measurable returns.
The event, organised by Indian Television dot com, will tackle three core questions: why top-line metrics so often fail to reflect real performance, how to separate authentic engagement from artificial amplification, and what transparency and validation should look like across every stage of the digital funnel.
The speaker lineup brings together marketing leaders from across BFSI.
Suresh Gajendran, deputy general manager of marketing and branding at Bank of Baroda, will be joined by Anand Bhatia, chief data officer and analytics at HDB Financial Services; Himanshu Jha, lead for integrated media at AB Capital; Harshita Hemnani, deputy vice-president of marketing at Bharti AXA Life; Prashant Choudhari, head of marketing at Fino Payments Bank; Ankita Sharma, associate vice-president of marketing at Generali Central General Insurance; Rupinderjit Singh, head of tech product and digital business at Kiwi Insurance; Ayush Kumar, vice-president of marketing at Appreciate; Ravi Kiran, associate vice-president of growth and strategy at mFilterIt; and Jyoti Kalra, business unit head at mFilterIt.
The session will be moderated by Bitupan Baruah, managing partner for digital transformation at Essence Mediacom by WPP Media.
The partnership with mFilterIt, a firm that specialises in trust and accuracy in digital measurement, underscores the event’s focus on transparency. The format is designed to encourage candid, peer-driven conversation—the kind that doesn’t happen when vendors are in the room.
For an industry that has long celebrated digital transformation, the event poses an uncomfortable question: what if the metrics we’ve been chasing were never fit for purpose? Attendees will leave with frameworks, not fluff—and a clearer view of where their money is actually going.
Digital
Ethical AI must benefit society, not dominate it, says WFEB chief Sanjay Pradhan at IAA event
At Mumbai event, ethics expert urges businesses and governments to shape AI responsibly
MUMBAI: Artificial intelligence may be racing ahead at lightning speed, but its direction must still be guided by human conscience. That was the central message delivered by Sanjay Pradhan, president of the World Forum for Ethics in Business (WFEB), during the latest edition of IAA Conversations held in Mumbai.
The session was organised by the International Advertising Association (IAA) and the Artificial Intelligence Association of India (AIAI) in association with The Free Press Journal at the Free Press House on 7 March. Addressing a packed audience, Pradhan called for stronger ethical leadership to ensure AI remains a tool that benefits humanity rather than one that governs it.
“Artificial intelligence has rapidly become one of the most powerful technologies humanity has created,” Pradhan said. “It is unlocking breakthroughs in medicine, science and creativity at a pace unimaginable just a few years ago.”
But he warned that the same technology carries serious risks. AI, he noted, can amplify disinformation faster than facts can travel, compromise privacy, deepen discrimination and disrupt millions of livelihoods. Referencing concerns raised by AI pioneers such as Geoffrey Hinton, often called the godfather of AI, Pradhan stressed that the real challenge is not whether AI will shape the world, but whether humans will shape it with ethics and wisdom.
Structuring his talk around four guiding questions, why, what, how and who, Pradhan introduced the audience to WFEB’s emerging AI Ethics Partnership, a global platform aimed at advancing responsible artificial intelligence. He outlined four priority concerns that demand urgent attention: disinformation, bias and discrimination, data privacy and job security.
To make the idea of ethical AI easier to grasp, Pradhan offered a simple metaphor. Ethical AI, he said, is like a three layered cake. The outer layer represents the visible value ethical AI creates for businesses and society. The middle layer is organisational culture that moves ethics from written codes to everyday practice. The innermost layer, however, is the most crucial, the conscience of individual leaders.
Drawing from Indian philosophical thought through WFEB co-founder Ravi Shankar, Pradhan noted that while artificial intelligence can reproduce stored knowledge, true intelligence is boundless and rooted in conscience, creativity and compassion. Practices such as breathwork and meditation, he suggested, can help leaders develop the calm clarity needed for ethical decision making.
The event also featured a discussion with Maninder Adityaraj Singh, chief of staff and head of innovation at Rediffusion Brand Solutions Pvt Ltd, and Yash Johri, lawyer, Supreme Court of India.
Opening the session, IAA India chapter president Abhishek Karnani, highlighted the need for industries to understand and engage with AI responsibly.
“AI has to be befriended and understood,” added Rediffusion managing director and AIAI national convenor Sandeep Goyal. “Its ethical use will determine whether it becomes a friend or a foe.”
As AI continues to reshape industries and societies, Pradhan ended with a simple but powerful call to action. Businesses, governments and individuals must work together to ensure that the algorithms shaping the future reflect human values rather than just cold logic.
