MAM
The Advertising Club elects Rana Barua as president
Mumbai: The advertising, marketing and media industry’s apex body – The Advertising Club has announced the managing committee for the current fiscal, i.e., F.Y. 2023-2024, at its 69th Annual General Meeting. Havas India Group CEO Rana Barua has been elected to lead the body.
Partha Sinha will continue as a member of the managing committee as the immediate past president for the ensuing year.
Speaking about the appointment, The Advertising Club president Rana Barua said, “It’s an honour to serve as the President at The Ad Club, a nearly 70-year-old venerable institution, whose legacy is deeply rooted in its unwavering commitment to excellence and is a beacon of inspiration for our industry. Our mission extends beyond accolades; it’s about actively shaping belonging and how we engage and influence the larger fraternity and the newer generation. Our new management team, a mosaic of diverse leaders across sectors, embark on a journey of limitless possibilities and opportunities. Together, we commit meaningful initiatives that will enable us to attract fresh talent into the industry, championing women empowerment, nurturing future leaders, advancing diversity, equity, and inclusion, and fostering progressive alliances and conversations.”
The below members were elected unopposed. The Office Bearers of The Advertising Club for 2023-2024 are –
- Rana Barua – president
- Dheeraj Sinha – vice president
- Dr Bhaskar Das – secretary
- Shashi Sinha – jt. secretary
- Mitrajit Bhattacharya – treasurer
Managing Committee Members include the below industry leaders who will play a decisive role in driving synergies and ensuring the success of all The Advertising Club initiatives:
- Avinash Kaul
- Malcolm Raphael
- Prasanth Kumar
- Punitha Arumugam
- Shubhranshu Singh
- Sonia Huria
- Subramanyeswar Samayam
In addition, given below is the list of co-opted industry professionals:
- Ajay Kakar
- Pradeep Dwivedi
- Vikram Sakhuja
The below list of leaders are special invitees and bring immense value to The Advertising Club through their expertise and deep understanding of the respective industry segments:
- Ajay Chandwani
- Alok Lall
- Anusha Shetty
- Lulu Raghavan
- Mansha Tandon
- Nisha Narayanan
- Raj Nayak
- Satyanarayan Raghavan
- Vikas Khanchandani
MAM
Xiaomi India launches Redmi Note 15 Special Edition campaign
OML film puts phone through chaos to showcase durability and camera
MUMBAI: If phones could sweat, this one would still keep its cool. In a market flooded with spec sheets and sameness, Xiaomi India has decided to turn up the heat quite literally. The brand’s latest campaign for the Redmi Note 15 Special Edition swaps predictable product demos for a full-blown kitchen meltdown, with celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor trading calm composure for controlled chaos.
Conceptualised and produced by OML, the campaign takes a sharply unconventional route. Instead of listing features, it throws the smartphone into a high-pressure dinner service, where Kapoor subjects it to a series of exaggerated, almost absurd stress tests chopping chillies on it, splashing water across its screen, and pushing it through a tense culinary gauntlet.
The message lands without spelling itself out. While the kitchen brigade falters under pressure, the phone does not. By the time a junior chef declares it “cooked”, the device emerges unscathed quietly reinforcing its durability, ultra-slim design, and 50 Master Pixel camera.
The approach reflects a broader shift in how brands are speaking to digital-first audiences. With Gen Z increasingly immune to traditional advertising formats, the campaign leans into storytelling, humour, and cultural familiarity to hold attention mid-scroll. The casting itself does part of the heavy lifting Kapoor, known for his composed persona, appears in an unexpectedly stern avatar, adding an element of surprise that fuels shareability.
For Xiaomi India, the idea was to move away from feature-led communication towards something more experiential. By embedding the product in chaotic, real-world scenarios, the campaign attempts to make performance feel demonstrated rather than declared.
The result is less of an advertisement and more of a content piece, one that understands the algorithm as much as the audience. Because in today’s attention economy, surviving the scroll might just be tougher than surviving a kitchen rush.
