MAM
Gupshup hires marketing leader Salim Ali as chief marketing officer
Mumbai: Gupshup, the leading Conversation Cloud, announced the appointment of Salim Ali as chief marketing officer (CMO). Based in Silicon Valley, Salim will lead full stack marketing across the entire value chain, and across all routes to market. He comes with close to three decades of experience and will be supporting Gupshup’s global growth and expansion with an expansive suite of solutions that comprise the Gupshup Conversation Cloud.
Having led large and globally dispersed teams, Salim brings deep marketing experience, building and scaling business lines across large enterprises and startups. In his previous role, Salim was the chief marketing officer at WordPress VIP, where he was running all things marketing from amplifying the WordPress brand voice, product marketing, new demand to industry and customer marketing. Before WordPress VIP, he held senior roles at the likes of SAP, Avalara, and Veritas Technologies, managing global teams across North America, LatAm, UK/EU, MENA, and APJ Markets.
At Gupshup, he will be at the helm of crafting a compelling and inspiring brand and platform story for the company’s key audience cohorts, scaling global demand generation, and amplifying customer marketing efforts by building out and expanding key GTM capabilities. This includes industry marketing, value messaging, ROI-based storytelling, and marketing operations- necessary for global coverage and accelerated growth.
“I am excited to welcome Salim to Gupshup as we further strengthen our very capable marketing leadership. His established expertise in accelerating enterprise digital experiences across global markets will be instrumental in propelling our growth. I am confident that he’ll fit in well with our culture and help take marketing to the next level, driving great impact with customers and investors alike”, said Gupshup CEO & co-founder Beerud Sheth.
Ali said, “I’m thrilled to join Gupshup at this stage of global growth. It’s an exciting phase for us as brands across the globe are investing in direct, contextual and immediate conversation capabilities to accelerate marketing, sales and CS imperatives. The 45,000+ brands powered by Gupshup is a sneak peek into how 1:1 conversations at scale is the inevitable future.”
Salim holds an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, and an M.S in Computer Science from Louisiana State University. He is an ardent movie buff with equal love for Hollywood and Bollywood creations.
MAM
ASCI study uncovers how Gen Alpha navigates ads in endless digital feeds
‘What the Sigma?’ ethnographic report maps blurred boundaries between content and commerce for 7–15-year-olds.
MUMBAI: Gen Alpha isn’t scrolling through the internet, they’re living rent-free inside its never-ending dopamine drip, and the ads have already moved in next door. The Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) Academy, partnering with Futurebrands Consulting, has published ‘What the Sigma?’, an immersive ethnographic study that maps how Indian children aged 7–15 (Generation Alpha) consume, interpret and live alongside media and commercial messaging in a hyper-digital environment.
The research draws on in-home interviews, sibling and peer conversations, and discussions with parents, teachers, counsellors, psychologists, marketers and kidfluencers across six cities. It examines not only what children watch but how algorithms, content creators, peers and parents shape their relationship with the constant stream of shorts, vlogs, gameplay, memes, sponsored posts and ‘kid-ified’ adult material.
Five core themes emerged:
- Discontinuous Generation, Gen Alpha is not growing up alongside the internet, they are growing up inside it. Cultural references, humour, aesthetics and language sync globally in real time, often leaving adults functionally illiterate in their children’s world. A reference that lands instantly for a 10-year-old in Mumbai or Visakhapatnam feels opaque or disjointed to most parents.
- Authority Vacuum, Parents and teachers frequently lose cultural fluency in digital spaces. The algorithm responsive, inexhaustible and perfectly attuned to preferences becomes the most attentive presence in many children’s daily lives. Rules around screen time feel increasingly difficult to enforce when adults cannot fully see or understand the content landscape.
- Digital as Society, Online and offline no longer exist as separate realms, they form one continuous reality. The phone is not a tool children pick up; it is the primary social environment they inhabit.
- Great Media Mukbang, Content flows as an ambient, boundary-less, multi-sensorial stream. Entertainment, advertising, commerce, gameplay, memes and vlogs merge into one undifferentiated feed. The line between active choice and passive absorption has largely collapsed.
- Blurred Ad Recognition, Children aged 7–12 typically recognise only the most overt advertising formats. Influencer promotions, gaming integrations and vlog sponsorships often register as organic entertainment. Children aged 13–15 show greater ad literacy but remain highly susceptible to narrative-integrated, passion-driven and emotionally resonant brand messaging. Discernment remains low across the board in a non-stop stream.
ASCI CEO and secretary general Manisha Kapoor said, “ASCI Academy’s study is an investigation into the content life of Generation Alpha not to judge them but to understand them. Their cultural reference points seem disjointed from those of earlier generations. Insights on how they perceive advertising is the first step towards building more responsible engagement frameworks, given that they are the youngest media consumers in our country right now.”
Futurebrands Consulting founder and director Santosh Desai added, “While earlier generations have been exposed to digital media, for this generation it is the world they inhabit. This report explores not only what they watch but how they are being shaped by algorithms, content and advertising.”
The study proposes four adaptive, principles-led pathways:
- Universal signposting of commercial intent using design principles that make advertising recognisable even to young audiences.
- Ecosystem-wide responsibility shared among advertisers, platforms, creators, schools and parents.
- Future-ready safeguards built directly into children’s content experiences rather than as optional background settings.
- Formal media and advertising literacy embedded in school curricula to teach age-appropriate understanding of persuasion and commercial intent.
In a feed that never pauses, Gen Alpha isn’t merely watching content, they’re swimming in an ocean where entertainment, commerce and identity swirl together. The real question isn’t whether they can spot an ad; it’s whether the adults building the ocean can agree on where the lifeguards should stand.
