MAM
Leo Burnett unveils new ad unit for Facebook at Cannes
MUMBAI: Leo Burnett has unveiled, a new interactive ad unit for Facebook at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.
Facebook’s Global Marketing Solutions’ VP Carolyn Everson revealed the new ad unit at Facebook’s ‘Social by Design’ seminar and explained the way brands and people can connect on Facebook using this unit.
The new Comment ad unit lets brands spark conversations among friends by posting a video, photo, link or status and allowing people to respond. Through Facebook’s platform, these conversations can engage brand’s fans and potential fans at scale.
Leo Burnett USA’s chief innovation officer Mark Renhaw said, “The collaboration between Facebook and Leo Burnett is particularly exciting. Through the creation of this ad unit we‘re helping Facebook and brands tap into people‘s desire and behavior to participate beyond brands‘ Facebook Pages. The Comment ad is a great example of word-of-mouth-marketing at scale. It‘s an organic way to get brands into the conversations that hundreds of millions of Facebook users are having every day.”
The comment ad unit starts off as a post in the form of a video, photo, link or status to the brand’s Facebook page and also appears as an ad unit. After which, Facebook users can start commenting or replying using the ad unit. The conversations can be surfaced as Sponsored Stories, which will engage around the conversations between brands and consumers.
Facebook’s global agency relations VP Blake Chandlee said, “We applaud Leo Burnett for providing brands with a new and unique way to spark conversations among people. With the most creative minds in the industry, agencies can and should be leading a new way of marketing that is personalised, social and engaging. We look forward to working with others to see future innovations that come from the agency community.”
MUMBAI: In India’s fast-moving payments race, Visa has just swiped in a new leader. The company has named Suresh Sethi as its India country head, marking a key leadership shift as it sharpens its focus on digital payments growth in the market. Sethi steps into the role following his recent exit from Protean eGov Technologies, where he served as chief executive officer. He succeeds Sandeep Ghosh, who has moved on after more than four years at Visa to pursue an external opportunity.
The appointment comes at a time when Visa is doubling down on its expansion strategy across India and the wider region, deepening partnerships and accelerating adoption in an increasingly competitive digital payments ecosystem.
Sethi brings with him a broad, cross-market perspective shaped by decades of experience across corporate banking, retail financial services, mobile money and large-scale government technology initiatives. He began his career at Citigroup, where he spent 14 years working across India, Africa, South America and the United States, focusing on transaction banking services within the corporate bank.
His appointment signals a blend of institutional experience and market familiarity qualities that could prove critical as Visa navigates a landscape where fintech innovation, regulatory evolution and consumer adoption are all accelerating at once.
As digital payments in India continue to scale rapidly, the leadership change underscores a simple reality, in a market where every tap, scan and swipe counts, who leads the charge can matter just as much as the technology itself.
