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Ipsos launches AI-powered video ad evaluation tool in India
MUMBAI: Global market research giant Ipsos has unveiled Creative|Spark AI, a cutting-edge advertising evaluation solution that delivers insights on video advertisements within minutes, hitting the Indian market today alongside 23 other countries.
The revolutionary tool combines human intelligence with artificial intelligence to predict viewer reactions to advertisements across linear TV, YouTube and social media platforms. Built on Ipsos’ existing Creative|Spark assessment framework and trained on 18,000 human response cases from the past five years, the solution operates on the company’s secure Gen AI platform, Ipsos Facto.
“This is a game-changer for advertisers juggling tight budgets and pressing deadlines,” said Shaun Dix, Ipsos’ global leader of creative excellence. “Particularly with the enormous spend flowing into social media advertising, brands can now evaluate single ads or hundreds of creatives in as little as 15 minutes.”
Ipsos India head brand health tracking and creative excellence Shalini Sinha emphasised the tool’s significance for the Indian market: “Creative|Spark AI offers an efficient, budget-friendly solution that’s particularly valuable for sectors not yet fully embracing creative assessment but eager for actionable insights.”
The platform doesn’t simply analyse advertisements—it provides predictive insights at “a fraction of the cost of consumer surveys,” according to Ipsos India creative excellence and creative/Spark AI head Shrutika More.
She highlighted the tool’s ability to help marketers “optimize testing budgets, increase campaign ROI, and deliver results at the speed and scale demanded by today’s market.”
The solution is immediately available in five Asia-Pacific markets—Australia, India, Japan, South Korea and Vietnam—as either a self-service option on Ipsos Digital or through full-service engagement with Ipsos teams. The company plans to roll out the tool across additional markets throughout 2025.
For India’s rapidly evolving advertising landscape, this AI-powered solution promises to deliver what many marketers have long sought: lightning-fast creative assessment with the precision of human insight at scale.
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‘You packed my parachute’: Avinash Kaul’s farewell salutes Network18’s unsung thousands
The outgoing chief’s LinkedIn post skips the boardroom tributes and goes straight to the security guards, drivers and office boys who kept the machine running
MUMBAI: Most farewell posts by senior media executives follow a familiar script: gratitude to leadership, a nod to the team, a hint of what lies ahead. Avinash Kaul’s is not that post.
Writing on LinkedIn on his last day at Network18 Media & Investments, where he spent nearly 12 years rising to chief executive, Kaul bypassed the boardroom entirely and directed his most heartfelt words at the people furthest from it: the security guard who greeted him before the building was fully awake, the fleet staff who drove him to airports at ungodly hours, the office assistants, the housekeeping teams, and the administrators who, as he put it, “held ten thousand invisible threads so the rest of us could look organised.”
“You packed my parachute,” he wrote. “Every day. Without fanfare, recognition, or ever asking for it.”
It was a striking note from a man who leaves behind a considerable operational record. Kaul joined Network18 managing three channels and exits with responsibility for 20, alongside a publishing business, a growing connected television footprint, and what he says is the highest revenue and highest channel share in the group’s history. He was quick to deflect the credit. “Not because of me. Because of 4,000 people who showed up, every day, in every department, across the country.”
To content teams across India, he issued a reminder that carries some weight given the pressures Indian news media currently faces. “Keep being custodians of trust for 700 million people. That is not a small thing. That is the whole thing.”
To colleagues in revenue and ratings who found him relentless and hard to satisfy, he was unapologetic but generous. “There was never a single moment of ill intent in my heart. Everything I pushed you towards came from one belief – that you were stronger than you knew, and I was not willing to let you settle for less than your real capability.” Those who believed him, he said, flew. Those who did not taught him to be a better communicator. He was grateful to both.
On what comes next, he offered a hint wrapped in metaphor. Something is being built, he said, prepared for “the way you pack a bag before a long climb. Not out of restlessness. Out of readiness.”
In a media landscape that rarely pauses to acknowledge the people who keep the lights on, it was, at the very least, a different kind of goodbye.
