Brands
Kartik Aaryan boards Thomas Cook’s borderless card campaign with youth appeal
MUMBAI: Thomas Cook (India) Limited has just dialled up the charm—and the Gen Z appeal—by roping in Hindi cinema heartthrob Kartik Aaryan as the brand ambassador for its foreign exchange business. The move, announced on 3 April 2025, is part of a strategic push to woo India’s youth with its freshly launched Borderless Travel Card.
The card is a slick multi-currency prepaid solution designed to make international travel less of a hassle and more of a flex. And who better to headline that message than the actor who already lives rent-free in the hearts of millennials and Gen Z? “I am excited to work with Thomas Cook India—a brand that is synonymous with not just pioneering travel but also innovative and youthful agility,” said Aaryan.
Kicking things off is a playful new campaign featuring Aaryan himself, where he explains forex woes to a fellow traveller while flaunting the Borderless Travel Card like it’s the ultimate travel hack. Think multiple cards, currencies and SIMs? Nah. This one card claims to do it all, and Aaryan is the guy telling you exactly why.
Thomas Cook EVP – foreign exchange, Deepesh Varma backed the move with data-driven confidence, “Our research reflects significant opportunity from Young India, and we are already witnessing an encouraging uptick in demand. Kartik is the perfect fit to inspire and address this powerful segment.”
The campaign will run across digital, social and connected TV platforms, ensuring every scroll and swipe gets a dose of Kartik’s forex finesse. For Thomas Cook, this isn’t just another ambassador play—it’s a bid to capture the imagination (and wallet) of India’s new-age traveller.
The Borderless Travel Card follows in the footsteps of Thomas Cook’s earlier successes like Study Buddy for students and EnterpriseFX for business travellers. With travel back on the agenda and wanderlust in full swing, the timing couldn’t be more pitch-perfect.
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.
