Brands
Loyalty’s no longer blind: India’s marketers say it’s earned, not bought
MUMBAI: In a world of swipe-right consumption and split-second brand switches, loyalty is less about freebies and more about frictionless delivery. This was the consensus at Indiantelevision.com’s Media Investment Summit 2025 during panel six, ‘Decoding the Evolving Indian Consumer: What Drives Loyalty in 2025?’ Moderated by Omnicom Media Group India CGO Anand Chakravarthy, the session dissected how Indian consumers are thinking, buying and staying (or straying) from brands today.
Featuring voices from pharma, beauty, wellness, QSR, BFSI, and heavy industry, the session proved that while brand allegiance may be waning, there’s a silver lining for those who can predict—and personalise—customer moments with precision.
Mahuya Chaturvedi of Century Paper framed loyalty as a “contract between buyer and brand”, akin to dating in a pre-app era. “It used to be purer”, she quipped, “fewer choices, fewer distractions. Now the moment that contract’s terms aren’t met—customers walk”.
She argued that brands must over-index on at least one pillar—price, performance, trust, or experience—to sustain recall. “In commoditised sectors like paper, scientific selling and product knowledge—not the product itself—drives repeat”, she noted.
Sayantani Das of Jumboking Burgers traced loyalty’s new anatomy, “It used to be about NFM (Net Frequency and Monitored value); now it’s about emotional bandwidth and physical availability”. She shared that metro station outlets triggered repeat behaviour simply by being the default option. “Loyalty is no longer a campaign, it’s a commuter habit”, she said.
For the healthcare crowd, loyalty isn’t convenience—it’s consequence. Pulak Sarmah of Sun Pharma stressed, “Consumers don’t obsess over brands like we do. They want reliable solutions. If Saridon says pain goes in five minutes, it better work in five”.
Ritu Mittal of Bayer Consumer Health added, “People in pain don’t want to experiment. Trust runs through families. That’s loyalty you can’t buy—it’s earned over generations”.
When discussing pharmacists’ roles in the ecosystem, she revealed how new launches like Saridon GO were backed by frontline chemist education. “Pharmacists aren’t just retailers—they’re trust brokers”, she said.
Krithika Sriram of PLIX noted that loyalty no longer depends on product quality alone. “Those are hygiene factors now. If you’re not helping customers in their wider journey—through diet plans, coaching, or credible education—you’re just another supplement on a shelf”, she said.
By offering custom meal plans alongside apple cider vinegar tablets, Plix increased stickiness without a discount in sight. “Transparency works”, she added. “We told consumers: nothing will change in seven days. Stick with us for 12 weeks—and it worked”.
For Nishant Nayyar of Kaya, loyalty is about staying relevant—physically and emotionally. “We realised if you close a retail outlet, loyalty drops. We’ve learned to stay at a customer’s moment of truth for as long as possible”, he said.
Kaya’s strategy involves using doctors as “influencers”, not celebrities. “Their authority on FDA-approved treatments becomes our marketing currency”, Nayyar explained. Kaya now releases digestible, science-backed video content to explain results without overwhelming jargon.
Drawing from her past life in banking and insurance, panelist Anjali (ex-BFSI, currently at D2C firm Dana) recalled, “Customers hated that we only called them once a year—to sell a renewal”. Her team countered by building content-based engagement models to create consistent touchpoints throughout the year. “Loyalty in BFSI isn’t about points. It’s about not ghosting your customer”, she said.
As the session closed, Chakravarthy prompted each panelist to finish the sentence: “In 2025, the future of loyalty lies with brands who…”
Their answers said it all:
. “…stand for something and do more than transactional strategies” — Krithika Sriram
. “…solve real-life consumer problems and create moments of delight” — Nishant Nayyar
. “…humanise science”— Ritu Mittal
. “…are radically transparent” — Sayantani Das
. “…are agile enough to evolve with each customer’s heartbeat” — Mahuya Chaturvedi
. “…offer extreme personalisation through AI” — Pulak Sarmah
In short, loyalty isn’t dying—it’s diversifying. And in 2025, it seems you don’t own your customer. You earn them, repeatedly.
Brands
UK’s OnlyFans seeks US investor at $3bn valuation after owner’s death
The adult video platform is seeking stability after the death of its billionaire owner
LONDON: OnlyFans is looking for a new partner. The London-based adult video platform is in advanced talks to sell a minority stake of less than 20 per cent to Architect Capital, a San Francisco-based investment firm, in a deal that would value the business at more than $3bn (£2.2bn).
The move is driven by an urgent need for stability. Leonid Radvinsky, the Ukrainian-American billionaire who owned OnlyFans, died of cancer last month at the age of 43, leaving the future of one of Britain’s most profitable privately held businesses suddenly uncertain.
The choice of Architect Capital is not arbitrary. The firm has deep expertise in financial services, which aligns neatly with OnlyFans’ ambitions to offer banking products to its creators, many of whom have long struggled to access basic financial services because of the nature of their work.
The numbers behind OnlyFans are, by any measure, staggering. The platform posted revenues of $1.4bn in the year to 30th November 2024, with a pre-tax profit of $684m, up four per cent on the prior year. Payments to creators totalled $7.2bn over the same period, a rise of nearly ten per cent. Radvinsky personally collected $701m in dividends from the business in 2024 alone, on top of more than $1bn in such payments he had already received. The platform, run through its parent company Felix International, hosts 4.6m creator accounts, with performers keeping 80 per cent of subscription proceeds and the platform pocketing the remaining 20 per cent. It has 377m fan accounts in total.
The current minority stake talks represent a notable scaling back of ambitions. In January, OnlyFans was reported to be in discussions with Architect about selling a majority stake of 60 per cent. Before that, the company had explored a sale to a consortium led by Forest Road Company, a Los Angeles-based investment firm. Neither deal materialised.
OnlyFans has built an enormously lucrative business on content that mainstream finance has long refused to touch. Now, with its owner gone and a $3bn valuation on the table, it is looking for the kind of respectable institutional backing that might finally persuade the banks to take its calls.
