MAM
Chtrbox launches Boombox, an open tool to shortlist India’s celebs & mega influencers
MUMBAI: Chtrbox, a leading Indian influencer marketing company, announces the launch of Boombox to cater to growing demand for social media influencers. Boombox is the industry’s first open discovery tool of India’s most influential voices, aimed to make the marketer’s job of shortlisting relevant celebrities & influencers easier, smarter and ROI driven.
Commenting on the launch, Pranay Swarup, Co- Founder and CEO, Chtrbox said, “Our objective in launching Boombox as a platform and end-to-end service is to empower marketers with strategic, data-powered, consolidated talent options when selecting celebs and top influencers for brand campaigns, events and endorsements. Today, when brands select talent, we’ve noticed that choices are decided largely on simple intuition such as – do I know & like this person? Do they represent the values my brand wants to represent? We are bringing data to this critical decision-making process, to ensure that when you invest & book India’s top talent for any purpose, you’re maximizing your ROI on social media. With Boombox, we want to help brands discover creative and budget-effective optimizations you may not have thought of before, paired with our expertise on creative strategy to create memorable influencer content.”
Boombox enables brands & their agencies with easy access to search, filter and shortlist famous personalities for their next big marketing initiative. The launch of Boombox comes at the right time today when brands, celebs and influencers are all increasingly looking to optimize time, speed, budgets, and most importantly grab attention spans of end consumers in this digital first world. Influencer powered content is disrupting the way brands created content traditional ads with talent; it's now a lot more cost-effective and impactful for talent to showcase authentically how they're engaging with the brand's product or idea, if it all it resonates with who they are.
Roshan Abbas, MD of Geometry Encompass, who is also an early investor in Chtrbox, adds, “Today more than ever, we’re offering brands digital extensions to their physical events and experiences. Chtrbox serves a great partner and platform through which agencies can now empower their brands with a new way to analyze and collaborate with all categories of celebs and influencers.”
"What makes Boombox awesome for planners is that it's amplified by Macro, Micro and Nano Influencer Power Packs, customized as per target categories and audience demographics, hand-picked from Chtrbox’s massive 350,000+ influencer base, giving unparalleled strength to deliver influential people powered marketing & content for brands” adds Rohit Raj, Co-Founder at the Glitch and Chtrbox.
Boombox has been launched as an open tool for a limited time period and can be accessed at Chtrbox.com/boombox.
MAM
Madison World to launch AI platform M BrAIn for media planning
Agency group invests about $1 million as it shifts to AI driven growth planning.
MUMBAI: If media planning once ran on spreadsheets and gut instinct, the next chapter may run on algorithms and curiosity. Madison World is preparing to roll out the first version of its proprietary artificial intelligence platform Madison M BrAIn in early April, as the independent agency group accelerates its transition toward AI driven planning and product led media services.
The platform, expected to involve an investment of around $1 million, is designed to reshape how the agency approaches strategy by combining internal knowledge, external data sources and advanced AI models into a single intelligence ecosystem.
According to Madison Media, OOH and Hiveminds partner and group CEO Ajit Varghese the initiative forms part of a larger structural rethink within the organisation. “Traditionally agencies built frameworks around media planning and allocation. We are redesigning that structure into what we call a Growth Planning System (GPS),” Varghese said.
The shift reflects a growing belief that effective media strategy must begin earlier in the decision making process. Instead of jumping directly to channel allocation, planners must first decode the market itself identifying consumer barriers, purchase triggers and the core challenges facing a brand.
Once those insights are mapped, agencies can build clearer growth agendas for clients and design media strategies that connect more closely with business outcomes.
To support that approach, Madison has built Madison M BrAIn as what it describes as a human AI cognitive ecosystem. Acting as a central intelligence hub, the platform aggregates proprietary insights alongside external data sources and large language models, enabling planners to access deeper market intelligence before building campaign strategies.
Varghese said one of the core objectives is to democratise knowledge across the organisation. “In the past, this level of understanding was largely available to senior leaders or experienced strategists. With Madison M BrAIn, even a junior planner should be able to access the same intelligence and approach clients with a far more informed perspective,” he said.
The agency has already implemented the new planning philosophy internally and completed three months of testing for the AI platform, with early trials showing encouraging results in terms of learning capability and system performance.
While the first version relied on global large language models, Madison is now developing its own proprietary Small Language Model (SLM) to serve as the core of the M BrAIn ecosystem.
“The SLM will be able to read global LLMs, but the LLMs cannot read the SLM,” Varghese explained. “That ensures all the intelligence we build remains within the Madison ecosystem and strengthens our proprietary knowledge base.”
The first version of Madison M BrAIn is expected to go live in early April, with a more refined version targeted by the end of June. Over time, the platform will integrate additional external data streams and APIs including consumer insight platforms, social listening tools and client datasets.
These integrations are expected to enhance the system’s learning capability and enable it to generate increasingly sophisticated strategic recommendations.
Although the platform is currently being deployed for internal use, Madison sees potential for it to evolve into a licensable product in the future.
“At the moment, our focus is to stabilise and strengthen M BrAIn internally. But over time there is potential for this to become a product that could be licensed externally,” Varghese said.
The AI platform is also part of a wider technology transformation underway at the agency group. Alongside M BrAIn, Madison is building a broader digital infrastructure called the Catalyst operating system, which aims to integrate operational processes, data and product platforms into a unified ecosystem.
This broader technology stack could require an additional $1 million to $1.5 million investment over time, though spending will be phased and reviewed regularly.
“We are evaluating progress every three months and prioritising the most critical capabilities first,” Varghese said.
Madison expects the full AI and operating ecosystem to be fully functional within 12 to 18 months, positioning the agency to combine human strategy with machine intelligence as the advertising industry enters its next data driven phase.
