Brands
Blum’s the word as furniture fails get a funny fix on screen
MUMBAI: When furniture starts groaning louder than your Monday blues, it’s time to check what’s ticking or rather, sticking behind those sleek surfaces. Blum India’s latest ad campaign takes a delightfully droll route to spotlight the unsung heroes of furniture design: the fittings. Yes, those tiny hinges and drawer runners you never think about until they squeak, jam or downright revolt.
With a trio of chuckle-worthy films, the Austrian fittings giant turns everyday domestic drama into relatable comedy. There’s the drawer that refuses to glide, the door that slams like a moody teenager, and the overhead cabinet that needs two hands, a prayer, and a balancing act to open. Each ad ends with a simple fix: Blum’s quietly brilliant engineering.
From the feather-light glide of the Legrabox drawer system to the whisper-soft closure of Clip top Blumotion hinges, and the gravity-defying ease of the Aventos lift-up mechanism Blum’s fittings promise to make your furniture behave, beautifully and silently, for years.
Explaining the need for the ad campaign, Blum India managing director Nadeem Patni said, “While our business primarily targets B2B customers, end consumers are at the heart of everything we do at Blum. We wanted a new campaign that could appeal to a broader audience, particularly everyday furniture users. While communicating about the convenience of using our fittings remained the central message, we were determined to put it across with a touch of humor.”
National award-winning filmmaker Bauddhayan Mukherji, aka Buddy, expressed his excitement about the campaign, saying, “When Nadeem and Neelam from Blum India suggested the humor route, I was pleasantly surprised. It meant we needed a cracker of a campaign. This set of films for Blum are those rare ones where everything just falls in place. Hope the viewers love the films as much as we did while making them.”
The humour-packed spots come courtesy of National Award-winning filmmaker Bauddhayan Mukherji, aka Buddy, who called the collaboration one of those rare campaigns where “everything just falls into place” unlike most poorly-fitted cabinet doors.
Catch the campaign on Blum India’s Youtube and Instagram, and the next time your drawer throws a tantrum, you’ll know exactly what not to blame: the carpenter.
Brands
Uber launches hotel bookings feature in partnership with Expedia
From hotel bookings to room service at your door, the ride-hailing giant is making its boldest push yet into everyday life
CALIFORNIA: Uber is done being just a taxi app. At its annual GO-GET product event, the world’s leading mobility and delivery platform unveiled a sweeping set of new features designed to plant itself at the centre of how people travel, eat and shop, hotel bookings included.
The headline move is a partnership with Expedia Group that lets Uber users in the United States book hotels directly within the Uber app, with access to a catalogue that will eventually grow to more than 700,000 properties worldwide. Uber One members get 10 per cent back in Uber One credits on all hotel bookings and savings of at least 20 per cent on a rolling list of more than 10,000 hotels globally. Vacation rentals from Vrbo, Expedia Group’s home-rental brand, will be added later this year. The partnership is expected to expand beyond the United States. From June, Uber rides will also be integrated directly into the Expedia app, with push notifications sent to travellers ahead of hotel check-in to book discounted Uber rides for the duration of their stay.
Dara Khosrowshahi, chief executive of Uber, framed the expansion in terms of the modern condition. “Uber is becoming an app for everything, helping people go, get, and now travel all in one place,” he said. “We’re all living through a moment of real cognitive overload: too many apps, too many decisions, too much noise. At the end of the day, our job is to help people reclaim their time, spending less of it managing the logistics of life and more of it actually living.”
Ariane Gorin, chief executive of Expedia Group, struck a similarly ambitious note. “Travel should feel effortless, and this partnership gets us one step closer to offering a seamless traveller experience,” she said. “By connecting our two-sided marketplace with Uber, we’re bringing Uber rides directly into the Expedia app and Expedia Group’s lodging inventory into the Uber app through our Rapid API technology. Together, we’re helping travellers spend less time planning and more time enjoying the journey.”
Beyond hotels, the product announcements come thick and fast. Travel Mode, available within both the Uber and Uber Eats apps, offers curated recommendations on local favourites, tourist destinations, OpenTable restaurant reservations and on-demand delivery to hotel rooms. Uber One International means the membership programme now works globally, allowing members to earn credits on rides abroad that can be redeemed once back home. A new Shop for Me feature lets users request items from any store, even those not listed on the app. Eats for the Way allows riders in select cities booking an Uber Black or Uber Black SUV to have a drink or snack waiting for them in the car. Voice Bookings, powered by artificial intelligence, lets users book a ride conversationally, without touching their phone. And a redesigned One Search bar consolidates results for places, food and items across the entire Uber platform in a single query.
Uber has now logged more than 72 billion trips since it launched in 2010. The question it is now answering is what comes after the ride. The answer, apparently, is everything else. Whether users want a hotel in Paris, a coffee in the back of a car or a snake plant from the local garden centre, Uber would very much like to be the one to provide it. The app economy’s land grab has a new front-runner.
NOTE: The image used is AI generated and only for representational purposes.
