MAM
Carat wins Tzinga business
MUMBAI: Hector Beverages, manufacturers of the energy drink Tzinga, have appointed Aegis‘ Carat to manage their account.
The agency‘s Bengaluru office will handle the account.
Hector Beverages director and co-founder Suhas Misra said, “The category is still under-developed and when compared to similar markets, the future growth potential is massive . We wanted a strong and dedicated media agency who can partner us in our growth plans wrt consumer and media understanding, and we found Carat as a perfect fit.”
Hector Beverages media consultant Chirantan Chandran said, “We were delighted to see the response we received from Carat on the brief and their huge passion for our business. Their understanding of the brief and the customized media solution recommended by Carat using a combination of insights and cutting edge tools were something we were looking for. We are pleased to have them as a partner and are sure that they would contribute significantly to our business growth.”
Carat MD Kartik Iyer said, “It has always been our effort to deliver consumer and business focused solutions and services to all our clients across India and are delighted that Hector Beverages found value in our proposal. We are happy to see that Hector Beverages reposed faith and confidence in our cutting edge media solution backed by relevant consumer insights.”
Carat is part of the Aegis Media India Group that also includes Vizeum, Posterscope, Isobar, the global communications agency with digital at its heart and iProspect Communicate2.
MAM
Smytten appoints Shishir Varma as CEO of Pulseai Research
Rebranded AI platform scales with 150 plus clients and 30 million users.
MUMBAI: In a world obsessed with what consumers say, Smytten is betting on what they actually do. The company has appointed Shishir Varma as chief executive officer of Pulseai Research, signalling a sharper push into AI-led, behaviour-driven consumer insights. The move comes as Smytten rebrands its insights vertical from Smytten PulseAI to Pulseai Research, marking a shift away from traditional, project-based research towards a more continuous, intelligence-led model.
Varma brings over 30 years of global experience across APAC markets, including India, China and Japan. Most recently managing director, Insights at Kantar Japan, he has built and scaled consumer insight businesses across geographies, including playing a key role in establishing Millward Brown in India. His mandate now: turn Pulseai into a category-defining platform in a space still dominated by surveys and static reports.
The pitch is straightforward but ambitious. Instead of relying on claimed responses, Pulseai Research taps into observed behaviour leveraging Smytten’s ecosystem of 30 million users built over a decade of product discovery, trials and purchases. The idea is to close the long-standing gap between what consumers claim and how they actually behave.
The numbers suggest early traction. In under 18 months, the platform has onboarded over 150 enterprise clients across sectors, pointing to growing demand for faster, more reliable alternatives to legacy research models.
Under the hood, the platform blends behavioural data with AI and large language model-led analysis to deliver real-time sentiment tracking, scalable qualitative insights, faster quantitative studies and always-on brand intelligence. In practical terms, that means compressing research timelines from weeks to days without sacrificing depth.
The ambition extends beyond FMCG. Pulseai Research is positioning itself as a cross-category intelligence layer, spanning auto, education, gadgets and emerging consumer segments anywhere behaviour-rich data can sharpen decision-making.
For Smytten, the leadership hire is less about optics and more about direction. With Varma at the helm, the company is leaning into a simple but powerful premise: in the age of AI, insight isn’t just about asking better questions, it’s about watching more closely.
