Digital
Burger King India onboards Havas Worldwide India as its digital partner
Mumbai: Burger King India has assigned its digital mandate to Havas Worldwide (Creative) India. As a part of this mandate, the agency will be responsible for creating cornerstone digital campaigns, social media management, and online response management, among other things.
Havas Worldwide India has been focusing on fortifying and updating its core expertise and offerings over the last two years. Havas Worldwide India grew by more than 30 per cent in 2021 across its Mumbai and Delhi offices, thanks to significant business wins such as Tata Cliq Luxury, Bel Cheese, P&G, Vivo, and Celio, to name a few. The agency has also been strengthening its teams to bring in the best talent. As the agency’s growth momentum continues in 2022, it will continue to come up with clutter-breaking work to deliver on its promise of making a meaningful difference in the lives of brands, businesses, and consumers.
Sharing his thoughts on the association, Burger King chief marketing officer Kapil Grover said, “We are excited to have partnered with Havas Worldwide India, which comes with a track record of path-breaking digital campaigns for brands across markets and categories. We are confident that their expertise and market understanding will help us deliver innovative and groundbreaking digital campaigns, thereby further strengthening Burger King India’s position to become the most lovable brand in the digital space. We look forward to a long and fruitful partnership.”
Commenting on the partnership with Burger King, Havas Worldwide (Creative) India managing director Manas Lahiri said, “In today’s cluttered digital ecosystem, only brands that come up with engaging, differentiated content make people sit up and take notice and we at Havas Worldwide India have been doing exactly that over the past few years. Burger King is one of the most audacious brands in the world today, known for creating truly innovative campaigns that become the talk of the town, and we’re confident we will be able to create more such path-breaking, meaningful work for them.”
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.
