MAM
DCMN expands insights capabilities in India; onboards Akshay Kapur
Mumbai: The growth marketing partner for digital brands DCMN has announced the expansion of its insights capabilities in India. To help oversee the new expansion, DCMN has brought Akshay Kapur on board.
Based out of Gurgaon, Kapur joins DCMN from audience insights and analytics leader Nielsen, where he spent close to four years working with clients including Pernod Ricard India, DSM, Dabur, Reckitt Benckiser, and GSK.
With ad spend set to cross the Rs one lakh crore mark this year in India alone, brands have never been more aware of the need to invest their budgets in the right audiences and campaigns that will help them drive real growth.
DCMN’s insights solutions are built to eliminate guess-work from a campaign, with capabilities including:
Target group analysis: Helping brands gain a true understanding of their audiences’ socio-demographics, needs, interests, media behavior and drivers for using a specific product or service. From there, marketing teams can better adapt their messaging and campaigns to appeal to these particular demographics.
Ad concept testing: Allowing brands to see which out of a selection of creative ad concepts is the most impactful and will resonate the most with consumers. This ensures businesses are getting the most bang for their buck before launching into the costly production process.
Brand tracking: Measuring metrics such as brand awareness, consideration, usage and loyalty, among others. This is especially helpful to measure before and after a specific campaign, allowing businesses to measure upswing in key branding metrics and understand how successful a campaign really is.
“Performance metrics can only give you so much insight into how well an advertising campaign has performed,” said DCMN country head India Bindu Balakrishnan. “Our clients are increasingly focused on building brand salience and want to know what impact a campaign has had on more nuanced awareness metrics like likeability and brand recognition. These are the questions our Insights product is designed to help answer.”
“Having this overview of both sides of the coin – i.e. both the performance and broader awareness metrics – gives a fuller picture of a marketing campaign’s impact and is invaluable for charting a brand’s growth,” he further added.
To date, DCMN has worked with hundreds of businesses to help them make better strategic decisions with data-based insights, including for unicorn eSports and mobile gaming platform Mobile Premier League, and leading global caller ID app Truecaller.
MAM
Lego brings Messi, Ronaldo, Mbappé, Vinicius together
Campaign clocks 314 million views ahead of FIFA World Cup 2026 buzz.
MUMBAI: Four legends, one frame and not a single tackle in sight. Lego has pulled off a crossover few thought possible, uniting Lionel Messi, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kylian Mbappé and Vinícius Júnior in a single campaign ahead of the FIFA World Cup 2026 only this time, they’re building dreams brick by brick.
Titled “Everyone wants a piece”, the campaign features the quartet assembling a Lego version of the World Cup trophy, before placing miniature versions of themselves atop it, a playful nod to football’s ultimate prize. Shared widely across social media, the ad carries a pointed disclaimer: it is not AI-generated, a subtle but telling signal in an era where even reality is often questioned.
The numbers tell their own story. The campaign has already crossed 314 million views on Instagram across the players’ accounts, with fans hailing it as a rare, almost nostalgic moment particularly for the reunion of Messi and Ronaldo, whose last shared campaign ahead of the 2022 World Cup became one of the platform’s most-liked posts.
Beyond the film, Lego is extending the play with exclusive, player-themed sets tied to each of the four stars, part of a broader football-led programme designed to ride the global momentum building towards 2026. The idea, as echoed by the players themselves, leans into the parallels between football and play experimentation, creativity, failure, and triumph.
Messi described the sets as a way to bring on-pitch moments into an imaginative, hands-on world, while Ronaldo called the transformation into a Lego figure a rare honour, blending sport with storytelling. Vinícius, meanwhile, struck a more personal note, recalling childhood moments of building with Lego and framing creativity as a universal language that transcends borders.
The timing is no accident. With the 2026 World Cup set to run from June 11 to July 19 across the United States, Canada and Mexico, and featuring an expanded 48-team format, global anticipation is already building. Argentina, led by Messi, will enter as defending champions, adding another layer of intrigue.
For Lego, the campaign does more than celebrate football, it taps into its mythology. Because when icons become figurines and rivalries turn into play, the beautiful game finds a new kind of pitch. one built, quite literally, by hand.
