MAM
Pix in marketing push for ‘The Hurt Locker’
MUMBAI: With one of its biggest properties for the year The Hurt Locker airing on 30 October at 9 pm, Pix is doing a marketing campaign covering print, television, outdoor and digital.
Speaking on this Pix VP marketing Himmat Butalia says, “We are pushing The Hurt Locker as an action movie. We want to capture as many eyeballs as possible and the action genre works best for English movies.
Pix has carried out outdoor activities in the form of hoardings in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata and Hyderabad from 22 October. There are print ads in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore and Kolkata on the day of the film‘s airing. The tagline is Everytime you suit up it is life or death”.
On the television front, the channel has taken spots on channels like Discovery and TLC a couple of days before the film airs.
In the digital realm, the channel has launched a viral game. Butalia claims that the game got 800 hits on Facebook within 15 minutes of launch. “The digital medium is certainly going to be very important for us going forward. You immediately get a reaction. You can track conversation. We are also using Twitter,” says Butalia. The viral game involves having to defuse a bomb.
On the ground level, the channel tied up with multiplexes PVR and Fame for loo snippets in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Pune. It is also running promos in restaurants like McDonalds, Café Coffee Day in Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata using their screens.
Radio is not being used as the channel decided to focus on digital instead, says Butalia.
Brands
Zscaler, Airtel launch India AI Cyber Research Centre
New hub to boost cyber resilience and trusted AI use
NEW DELHI: As India’s digital engine roars ahead, so do the risks riding shotgun. In response, Zscaler, Inc. and Bharti Airtel have joined hands to launch the AI and Cyber Threat Research Center – India, a national initiative aimed at strengthening the country’s cyber defences and accelerating responsible AI adoption.
The centre is designed as a multi stakeholder platform that brings together industry, government and academia. Its mission is clear: protect critical sectors such as telecom, banking and energy, shield everyday digital users, and future proof India’s fast expanding online ecosystem.
India has long been a major innovation hub for Zscaler, with a substantial portion of its cyber research talent based here. With this new centre, that footprint evolves into a national collaboration engine. The idea is simple but ambitious, build in India, for India, and help power the country’s journey towards a secure and digitally self reliant future.
The timing is telling. India is building digital systems at population scale, not just enterprise scale. That scale has widened the attack surface dramatically. At the same time, cyber criminals and nation state actors are deploying AI to scan, probe and exploit vulnerabilities in minutes.
Zscaler’s research arm, ThreatLabz India, reports millions of infiltration attempts every month. These include espionage campaigns linked to regional geopolitical tensions, 1.2 million intrusion attempts from 20,000 sources targeting 58 Indian digital entities, and a rise in zero day exploit attempts across multiple industries.
In such an environment, perimeter based security models are struggling to keep pace. The new centre aims to push a shift towards secure by design systems and Zero Trust architecture.
Its strategy rests on four pillars: protect through real time intelligence, remediate by working directly with government agencies, facilitate adoption of AI driven security and Zero Trust frameworks, and build a stronger cybersecurity talent pipeline through specialised certifications.
As founding members, Zscaler and Airtel will combine global threat intelligence with local network visibility. Zscaler will deploy a dedicated India focused research team and draw insights from its Zero Trust Exchange platform, which processes over 500 billion daily transactions worldwide. Airtel, meanwhile, will contribute deep visibility into IoT and mobile traffic, helping detect suspicious activity faster and coordinate response across the ecosystem.
Bharti Airtel executive vice chairman Gopal Vittal, said the partnership extends Airtel’s commitment to safeguarding customers and the nation’s digital fabric. He added that the collaboration would address challenges unique to the Indian market and encourage secure and confident digital engagement.
Zscaler chief executive, chairman and founder Jay Chaudhry, said India’s digital ambition cannot be secured with legacy firewalls and VPNs. He noted that a modern Zero Trust architecture is essential for a hyper connected world and that the new centre would harness the scale of Zscaler’s global security cloud while empowering a new generation of Indian cyber defenders.
Additional members from critical public and private sectors are expected to join the initiative in the coming months, expanding its scope and deepening collaboration.
In a world where threats travel at machine speed, India’s answer is to think faster, collaborate wider and build smarter.
