Brands
Ixigo flips the script on April Fools’ with a sky-high refund surprise
MUMBAI: April Fools’ Day just got upgraded from pranks to plane tickets. While brands scrambled to pull legs, ixigo pulled wallets—but in the best way possible. The travel platform turned its cheeky April Full Refund Sale into a straight-up jackpot for 100 lucky flyers. Yes, you read that right.
Free.
Flights.
On 1 April 2025, between 11 a.m. and 9 p.m., ixigo dropped a deal that had the internet scratching its head. Was it a scam? A spoof? A sly social stunt? Nope. It was as real as the 100 per cent flight refunds it dished out. Every hour, 10 travellers who booked domestic or international flights on the app were randomly chosen to get their full ticket value back as ixigo money. The reward? Fully redeemable within 90 days.
The buzz began on 31 March with a loony little teaser starring ixigo co-founders Aloke Bajpai and Rajnish Kumar in comically outlandish avatars. The video leaned into the absurd, but the payoff was dead serious: a campaign that blended chaos with cashback.
Winners were revealed via hourly Instagram Reels, building suspense and fuelling travel envy across social feeds. Some folks nearly cried at the generosity. Others just booked another trip.
Take Zubair, who flew from Bangalore to Singapore and bagged a Rs 39,950 refund. Or Jitendra, who got Rs 13,622 back for flying from Muscat to Ayodhya. Aishwarya’s refund for Mumbai to Kolkata? A neat Rs 8,325. One traveller even scored Rs 18,483 back for a Dubai-Mumbai flight. Not too shabby for a ‘joke’.
“What started as an April Fool’s prank turned into a real treat for travel lovers – proving that sometimes, the joke can be on scepticism!” said the campaign team. This year, ixigo didn’t just flirt with fun—it made 1 April an actual day of reward, pushing the envelope for interactive and meaningful marketing.
If this is what fooling looks like, more brands should take notes. Or better yet, take off.
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
