MAM
Pepsi to unveil summer campaign tonight
MUMBAI: Pepsi’s summer campaign, boasting a casting coup of actors will launch on television from tonight.
Conceptualised by Pepsi’s ad agency JWT, the TV spot has been directed by 28-year old Shaad Ali, who directed Saathiya. The ad, shot over four days in Mumbai, is set to be aired on all mainline TV channels in 50-sec spots, and subsequently in 30-sec spots.
According to a MindShare commissioned study done by Indian Marketing Research Bureau (IMRB), brand Pepsi had 47 per cent top-of-mind recall during the World Cup, which is way ahead of competition products in the same category, claims Pepsi.
The ads brings together Kareena Kapoor, Preity Zinta, Fardeen Khan and Saif Ali Khan for its new summer campaign. The stars have been carefully chosen for this ad. Fardeen Saif, Kareena and Preity have been cast in a way that makes them real and approachable.the guys and gals next door, says Pepsi.
Set against the backdrop of summer, the new ad campaign epitomizes the uniquely irreverent Pepsi attitude. The action takes place in an apartment complex where the guys are shacking up together and two girls move in next door. And when their paths cross, the fun begins because the guys will do anything for their Pepsi, even if it means being quite “besharam” to outwit the cool babes, says an official release.
MAM
‘You packed my parachute’: Avinash Kaul’s farewell salutes Network18’s unsung thousands
The outgoing chief’s LinkedIn post skips the boardroom tributes and goes straight to the security guards, drivers and office boys who kept the machine running
MUMBAI: Most farewell posts by senior media executives follow a familiar script: gratitude to leadership, a nod to the team, a hint of what lies ahead. Avinash Kaul’s is not that post.
Writing on LinkedIn on his last day at Network18 Media & Investments, where he spent nearly 12 years rising to chief executive, Kaul bypassed the boardroom entirely and directed his most heartfelt words at the people furthest from it: the security guard who greeted him before the building was fully awake, the fleet staff who drove him to airports at ungodly hours, the office assistants, the housekeeping teams, and the administrators who, as he put it, “held ten thousand invisible threads so the rest of us could look organised.”
“You packed my parachute,” he wrote. “Every day. Without fanfare, recognition, or ever asking for it.”
It was a striking note from a man who leaves behind a considerable operational record. Kaul joined Network18 managing three channels and exits with responsibility for 20, alongside a publishing business, a growing connected television footprint, and what he says is the highest revenue and highest channel share in the group’s history. He was quick to deflect the credit. “Not because of me. Because of 4,000 people who showed up, every day, in every department, across the country.”
To content teams across India, he issued a reminder that carries some weight given the pressures Indian news media currently faces. “Keep being custodians of trust for 700 million people. That is not a small thing. That is the whole thing.”
To colleagues in revenue and ratings who found him relentless and hard to satisfy, he was unapologetic but generous. “There was never a single moment of ill intent in my heart. Everything I pushed you towards came from one belief – that you were stronger than you knew, and I was not willing to let you settle for less than your real capability.” Those who believed him, he said, flew. Those who did not taught him to be a better communicator. He was grateful to both.
On what comes next, he offered a hint wrapped in metaphor. Something is being built, he said, prepared for “the way you pack a bag before a long climb. Not out of restlessness. Out of readiness.”
In a media landscape that rarely pauses to acknowledge the people who keep the lights on, it was, at the very least, a different kind of goodbye.
