MAM
Glow and behold, APAC drives the global self-care cart into overdrive
MUMBAI: Glow with the flow, APAC is putting the “care” in self-care like never before. From double-digit shopping days to double-duty products, Asia Pacific shoppers are rewriting the beauty playbook by blending wellness and beauty in one irresistible glow-up. According to Criteo’s Global Health & Beauty Pulse 2025, this region isn’t just riding the beauty boom, it’s fuelling it, one premium cart at a time.
The report, based on data from beauty brands, ecommerce partners, and 14,000 plus shoppers globally, shows that during Q4 2024’s mega shopping festivals 10/10, 11/11, and 12/12, APAC shoppers triggered seismic spikes across self-care categories. Power flossers surged by a gleaming 353 per cent, deodorants and antiperspirants spiked 224 per cent, makeup swatched up 196 per cent, while skincare (up 154 per cent), massage oils (128 per cent), and ear drops (148 per cent) also saw radiant gains.
The appetite for premium wellness products also signals a shift in spending behaviour: APAC consumers are buying fewer, but better.
Year-on-year sales in Q2 2025 reflect this trend: health and beauty products rose 5 per cent in APAC, with order values growing by 6.78 per cent. Globally, EMEA led with a 14 per cent rise in sales, and the Americas followed at 1 per cent. In terms of order value, the Americas saw the highest bump at 9.8 per cent, while EMEA trailed with 4.36 per cent.
APAC consumers, however, stand out as confident, discovery-driven shoppers 40 per cent of health and beauty buyers are first-time users of the brand. This open-mindedness, combined with omnichannel habits, is creating fertile ground for marketers.
Globally, 84 per cent of beauty buyers have either maintained or increased their spending in the last six months up 11 points since 2023. Shoppers are also digitally engaged: 57 per cent discover products via marketplaces, while 52 per cent rely on search engines.
And the channel switch is real 48 per cent of beauty consumers research online but buy in-store, while 41 per cent do the reverse. For brands, that means AI-driven tools are no longer optional, they’re essential to stitch together the journey from scroll to shelf.
“Beauty shoppers today are deeply informed, digitally savvy, and ready to try new brands,” said Criteo India country head Medhavi Singh. “This report reaffirms beauty’s emotional resilience as a category driven by personalisation, relevance, and real-time discovery.”
Criteo’s data suggests that for brands to win in this glow economy, they must be omnipresent, omnichannel, and on point. Think retail media, AI-powered product recommendations, and frictionless shopping across all touchpoints.
In a world of smarter skincare, fragrant purchases, and flossers that fly off virtual shelves, one thing’s clear beauty’s new frontier is cross-category, cross-platform, and deeply connected to wellness.
AD Agencies
Fevicol releases its last ad campaign by the late Piyush Pandey
The adhesive brand’s last campaign by the late advertising legend Piyush Pandey turns an everyday Indian obsession into a quietly powerful metaphor
MUMBAI: Fevicol has never needed much of a plot. A sticky bond, a wry observation, a truth that every Indian instantly recognises — that has always been enough. “Kursi Pe Nazar,” the brand’s latest television commercial, is no different. And yet it carries a weight that no previous Fevicol film has had to bear: it is the last one its creator, the advertising legend Piyush Pandey, will ever make.
The film, released on Tuesday by Pidilite Industries, fixes its gaze on the kursi — the chair — and what it means in Indian life. Not just as a piece of furniture, but as a currency of ambition, a vessel of authority, and a source of quiet social drama that plays out in every home, office and institution across the country. Who sits in the chair, who waits for it, and who eyes it hungrily from across the room: the film transforms this sharply observed cultural truth into a narrative that is, in the best Fevicol tradition, funny, warm and instantly familiar.
The campaign was Pandey’s idea. He discussed it in detail with the team before his death, but did not live to see it shot. Prasoon Pandey, director at Corcoise Films who helmed the commercial, said the team needed five months to find its footing before they felt ready to shoot. “This was the toughest film ever for all of us,” he said. “It was Piyush’s idea, magical as always.”
The emotional weight of that responsibility was not lost on the team at Ogilvy India, which created the campaign. Kainaz Karmakar and Harshad Rajadhyaksha, group chief creative officers at Ogilvy India, described the process as “a pilgrimage of sorts, on the path that Piyush created not just for Ogilvy, but for our entire profession.”
Sudhanshu Vats, managing director of Pidilite Industries, said the film was rooted in a distinctly Indian insight. “The ‘kursi’ symbolises aspiration, transition, and ambition,” he said. “Piyush Pandey had an extraordinary ability to elevate such everyday observations into iconic storytelling for Fevicol. This film carries that legacy forward.”
That legacy is considerable. Over several decades, Pandey’s partnership with Fevicol produced some of the most beloved advertising in Indian history, building the brand into something rare: a household name that people actively enjoy watching sell to them.
“Kursi Pe Nazar” does not try to be a tribute. It simply tries to be a great Fevicol film. By most measures, it succeeds — which is, in the end, the most fitting send-off of all.
