Brands
Canon earmarks Rs 18 crore for advertising
MUMBAI: Targeting school going kids in the age-group of nine to 19 years with a new campaign, ‘Super Student’, Canon plans to take student creativity to the next level.
In a bid to reposition itself, it has launched an aggressive marketing drive for its Pixma range of inkjet printers. The company’s new campaign focuses on the ink efficient Canon Pixma Inkjet printers, which inspire students to think out of the box and helps bring out the best in them, always.
Canon executive vice president Alok Bharadwaj said, “We want to connect with school going kids who have high desire to accomplish high merit and recognitions. Engaging with them on technology is a great conversation which can help us become most desirable brand on their mind radar. These techie students of today are comfortable using smart devices including cloud and wi-fi printing. The new Pixma Ink efficient range is designed to combine creative printing with incredible cost-per-print savings. These models offer brilliant functionality and super affordable printing as low as 99 paisa per print. We want to show the students that realising their true creative potential is now possible and that too in a fun way!”
“We plan to capture 25 per cent market share in the printer category by end of 2014 and become the market leader by 2016. Our printers are currently sold at 1000 retail outlets and we aim to double it by end of 2016. With 300 million students in India, building our brand in their mind is a big business of tomorrow for us,” added Bharadwaj.
Canon plans to invest Rs 18 crore in advertising and promotions, this year, for its range of printers. The Super Student TVC will be on air from 22 August 2014 on kids, news and entertainment channels.
Canon India CSP group head Gautam Paul emphasised about the Canon technology. “The heart of any printer is the ability to print high quality documents and photos, and Canon Pixma printers excel in this fundamental area. FINE (Full-photolithography Inkjet Nozzle Engineering) technology achieves high-quality and high-speed printing. User experience is further enhanced with exclusive access to Creative Park Premium website which includes printable 3D paper craft, greeting cards, scrapbook and works by famous artists. This fun resource helps students create fun projects and enhances their creativity.”
Brands
MakeMyTrip partners with OpenAI to boost AI-powered travel planning
Conversational AI now guides travellers from inspiration straight to booking
GURUGRAM: MakeMyTrip, India’s leading online travel company, has teamed up with OpenAI to bring a fresh twist to AI-driven travel planning. The collaboration integrates OpenAI’s APIs into MakeMyTrip’s app, making it easier than ever for travellers to move from chatting about dream trips to booking them.
The move centres around MakeMyTrip’s Myra interface, a GenAI trip planning assistant that now handles over 50,000 conversations a day in languages ranging from English and Hindi to Tamil, Telugu and Bengali. Myra helps travellers explore options, create itineraries and book flights, hotels and extras without the usual hassle of searching and filtering.
MakeMyTrip co-founder and group CEO Rajesh Magow said, “With OpenAI, we turn curiosity into confident decisions. When travellers start their journey through conversation, MakeMyTrip becomes a seamless extension of that discovery process. AI combined with our travel data makes it possible to deliver personalised, bookable options at scale.”
OpenAI managing director- international Oliver Jay added, “MakeMyTrip is showing how AI can make travel planning feel more like a conversation than a chore. Advanced AI isn’t just about back-end efficiencies, it’s about transforming the way travellers experience and engage with the platform.”
MakeMyTrip has long invested in AI across the travel lifecycle, from inspiration and discovery to booking and post-sales support. Nearly half of Myra’s queries now come from tier-2 and smaller cities, and voice interactions are booming outside metros, making AI travel assistance more accessible than ever.
With this partnership, MakeMyTrip is not just keeping up with AI trends, it’s aiming to lead the way, turning every traveller’s whim into a smooth, bookable adventure.
