Brands
Google helps Big Bazaar drive customers
MUMBAI: Big Bazaar, one of the leading hypermarket chains in India with a presence in over 120 cities with 225 stores, has worked closely with Google to create ‘Smart Search.’
Big Bazaar realised that their customers seek solution to every query on Google Search and wanted to position the brand as the solution to every household product query. The challenge was to add newer segment young customers who seek offers and information online and drive them to the stores.
Ignition Labs, Google India’s creative solution team, conceptualised and helped execute the campaign, which led to Big Bazaar giving exclusive offers to Google search users for one day in the first weekend of each month, when the propensity to spend is higher.
Over 1,80,000 discount coupons were distributed against each Google search in three days, which saw an increase of more than 30,000 people visiting the Big Bazaar stores.
Future Group group head – digital Pawan Sarda says, “Search and explore is a way of life in today’s time and Google Search is one of the important destination for it. Smart Search has helped us translate the customer’s intent into a purchase at our stores and has definitely helped us acquire newer & younger customers.”
Google India industry director Nitin Bawankule said, “Big Bazaar and Google came together to conceptualise this innovative campaign, ultimately driving trackable offline footfalls and sales.”
Further it used innovative features like Click to Missed-Call for a seamless experience of delivering coupons, instead of filling long forms. This reduced the lead generation process from filling a form to a simple missed call.
Brands
UK’s OnlyFans seeks US investor at $3bn valuation after owner’s death
The adult video platform is seeking stability after the death of its billionaire owner
LONDON: OnlyFans is looking for a new partner. The London-based adult video platform is in advanced talks to sell a minority stake of less than 20 per cent to Architect Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm, in a deal that would value the business at more than $3bn (£2.2bn).
The move is driven by an urgent need for stability. Leonid Radvinsky, the Ukrainian-American billionaire who owned OnlyFans, died of cancer last month at the age of 43, leaving the future of one of Britain’s most profitable privately held businesses suddenly uncertain.
The choice of Architect Capital is not arbitrary. The firm has deep expertise in financial services, which aligns neatly with OnlyFans’ ambitions to offer banking products to its creators, many of whom have long struggled to access basic financial services because of the nature of their work.
The numbers behind OnlyFans are, by any measure, staggering. The platform posted revenues of $1.4bn in the year to 30th November 2024, with a pre-tax profit of $684m, up four per cent on the prior year. Payments to creators totalled $7.2bn over the same period, a rise of nearly ten per cent. Radvinsky personally collected $701m in dividends from the business in 2024 alone, on top of more than $1bn in such payments he had already received. The platform, run through its parent company Felix International, hosts 4.6m creator accounts, with performers keeping 80 per cent of subscription proceeds and the platform pocketing the remaining 20 per cent. It has 377m fan accounts in total.
The current minority stake talks represent a notable scaling back of ambitions. In January, OnlyFans was reported to be in discussions with Architect about selling a majority stake of 60 per cent. Before that, the company had explored a sale to a consortium led by Forest Road Company, a Los Angeles-based investment firm. Neither deal materialised.
OnlyFans has built an enormously lucrative business on content that mainstream finance has long refused to touch. Now, with its owner gone and a $3bn valuation on the table, it is looking for the kind of respectable institutional backing that might finally persuade the banks to take its calls.
