MAM
Pocket FM dials up its brand game as Adityan Kayalakal tunes in
MUMBAI: If careers had soundtracks, Adityan Kayalakal’s would be a genre-blending mixtape and his latest track begins at Pocket FM, where he has joined as vice president for brand. For someone who has spent years straddling sport, streaming, edtech, fintech and Web3, returning to entertainment feels less like a move and more like a homecoming. “Feels incredible to return to entertainment,” he shared, summing up a journey shaped by platforms that travel, connect and stay.
Kayalakal steps into the Mumbai-based, hybrid-role in December 2025, bringing with him a decade-plus of brand-building that has hopped across industries but stayed rooted in one instinct: understanding what makes audiences stop, watch, listen and come back for more.
Before Pocket FM, he helmed marketing at Jupiter, where he spent seven months steering brand strategy for the fintech challenger. But his sharpest growth sprint came at Veera, where he was a founding team member and eventually Head of Marketing & GTM. The Web3 browser rocketed to 4 million users in its first year, clocking 1 million MAUs, 500k WAUs, 100k DAUs, and an average of 13 plus minutes spent per user per day numbers that placed it among the fastest-growing Web3 applications globally. The brand’s breakthrough campaigns from the see-through ‘Toilet’ installation to the giant ‘Cashpile’ didn’t just win awards; they sparked conversation and cemented Veera as a startup to watch in 2024.
Long before Web3 and fintech, Kayalakal was shaping storytelling at scale. At BYJU’S, he led global digital strategy, brand platforms and partnerships, delivering some of the company’s most high-impact campaigns. His slate included unveiling Lionel Messi as the face of BYJU’S social initiative; orchestrating communication for the BYJU’S x FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 partnership, which fetched 4 billion eyeballs; and driving the “Education For All” campaign to 100 million views. His sports-led anthems from Kerala Blasters to the Indian men’s and women’s cricket teams collectively racked up hundreds of millions of views.
But perhaps his most formative years were at the NBA, where he headed content and then digital and distribution partnerships for South Asia. In barely two weeks, he created 350 plus content pieces for the first-ever NBA India Games and went on to roll out Hoop Nation, which won Promax Gold and Silver. He also scripted landmark distribution deals with Disney India, DD Sports (driving 70 million new TV viewers), and ultimately a long-term partnership with Viacom18 & Jio helping expand NBA’s footprint across TV, digital, gaming and esports.
Earlier, he held roles across entertainment brands including Hotstar, Movies Now, ESPN and Hasbro’s Transformers, shaping his sense of narrative, culture and consumer behaviour.
With Pocket FM rapidly scaling its audio entertainment ecosystem, Kayalakal’s remit will be to sharpen its brand storytelling, expand its cultural footprint and build the next chapter of a platform that has already redefined long-form audio fiction in India.
For someone who thrives where stories breathe from courtside to crypto to classrooms, Pocket FM seems like the next world where the narrative is waiting to be rewritten. And if his track record is anything to go by, the brand’s next season is about to sound a whole lot louder.
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.
