Brands
Mira Kapoor and Asian Paints turn travel memories into textured walls
MUMBAI: When is a wall more than just a wall? When it moonlights as your travel journal textured, tinted, and touched by Rome. In a seamless blend of personal nostalgia and tactile luxury, Asian Paints has teamed up with lifestyle maven Mira Kapoor for its Royale Play collection bringing travel-inspired storytelling right into the living room. The collaboration is a masterclass in how walls can do more than hold paint; they can hold memories.
Drawing from her travels, especially the eternal city of Rome Mira reimagines a corner of her home through Royale Play’s textured finishes, evoking colonnades, aged stonework, and sunlit patinas in an aesthetic that feels both ancient and intimate. “Every place I’ve travelled to has left a mark on me… and now, on my home,” she muses in the campaign film, as camera pans reveal elegant walls whispering stories of cobblestones and classical charm.
The creative showcase comes at a time when décor is evolving from cookie-cutter colour palettes to expressive, textured statements. Royale Play, already known for its luxurious finishes, now takes on the role of memory-keeper, encouraging homeowners to turn walls into mood boards for their lives.
For Asian Paints, this isn’t just a celebrity tie-in. It’s a design philosophy. “Décor is deeply personal,” says Asian Paints MD & CEO Amit Syngle. “It reflects memories, passions, and experiences. Mira exemplifies this how even a fleeting moment in Rome can be translated into something lasting at home.”
Royale Play’s range of finishes allows homeowners to explore beyond trends offering textures that mimic everything from sandstone and brushed linen to metallic sheens and artisanal plasters. It’s a collection that invites touch as much as it commands attention.
What Mira brings to the table is more than influence, it’s intent. The collab isn’t about recreating Rome, but recapturing a feeling, a fleeting sunset, or the hush of an old piazza. And with a touch of Royale Play, that essence now lives on her walls.
With this campaign, Asian Paints paints a bigger picture, one where your story becomes your style, and walls are no longer blank canvases, but chapters waiting to be read.
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Brands
Uber launches hotel bookings feature in partnership with Expedia
From hotel bookings to room service at your door, the ride-hailing giant is making its boldest push yet into everyday life
CALIFORNIA: Uber is done being just a taxi app. At its annual GO-GET product event, the world’s leading mobility and delivery platform unveiled a sweeping set of new features designed to plant itself at the centre of how people travel, eat and shop, hotel bookings included.
The headline move is a partnership with Expedia Group that lets Uber users in the United States book hotels directly within the Uber app, with access to a catalogue that will eventually grow to more than 700,000 properties worldwide. Uber One members get 10 per cent back in Uber One credits on all hotel bookings and savings of at least 20 per cent on a rolling list of more than 10,000 hotels globally. Vacation rentals from Vrbo, Expedia Group’s home-rental brand, will be added later this year. The partnership is expected to expand beyond the United States. From June, Uber rides will also be integrated directly into the Expedia app, with push notifications sent to travellers ahead of hotel check-in to book discounted Uber rides for the duration of their stay.
Dara Khosrowshahi, chief executive of Uber, framed the expansion in terms of the modern condition. “Uber is becoming an app for everything, helping people go, get, and now travel all in one place,” he said. “We’re all living through a moment of real cognitive overload: too many apps, too many decisions, too much noise. At the end of the day, our job is to help people reclaim their time, spending less of it managing the logistics of life and more of it actually living.”
Ariane Gorin, chief executive of Expedia Group, struck a similarly ambitious note. “Travel should feel effortless, and this partnership gets us one step closer to offering a seamless traveller experience,” she said. “By connecting our two-sided marketplace with Uber, we’re bringing Uber rides directly into the Expedia app and Expedia Group’s lodging inventory into the Uber app through our Rapid API technology. Together, we’re helping travellers spend less time planning and more time enjoying the journey.”
Beyond hotels, the product announcements come thick and fast. Travel Mode, available within both the Uber and Uber Eats apps, offers curated recommendations on local favourites, tourist destinations, OpenTable restaurant reservations and on-demand delivery to hotel rooms. Uber One International means the membership programme now works globally, allowing members to earn credits on rides abroad that can be redeemed once back home. A new Shop for Me feature lets users request items from any store, even those not listed on the app. Eats for the Way allows riders in select cities booking an Uber Black or Uber Black SUV to have a drink or snack waiting for them in the car. Voice Bookings, powered by artificial intelligence, lets users book a ride conversationally, without touching their phone. And a redesigned One Search bar consolidates results for places, food and items across the entire Uber platform in a single query.
Uber has now logged more than 72 billion trips since it launched in 2010. The question it is now answering is what comes after the ride. The answer, apparently, is everything else. Whether users want a hotel in Paris, a coffee in the back of a car or a snake plant from the local garden centre, Uber would very much like to be the one to provide it. The app economy’s land grab has a new front-runner.
NOTE: The image used is AI generated and only for representational purposes.
