MAM
Third Wave Coffee adds a pizza twist with a slice of fun and flavour
MUMBAI: A jingle, a dance, and now pizza! Third Wave Coffee is taking its love for café culture to the next level with the launch of its new range of pizzas, brought to life through the brand’s peppy new campaign “Slice of Joy”. Pairing wood-fired slices with signature brews, the chain’s latest offering is anything but a half-baked idea.
The star of the campaign is the quirky ‘Sip Sip Bite’ jingle, which has baristas busting out choreographed moves across 140 plus cafés in India. Not just a digital gimmick, the jingle plays out live in-store every day at 1 PM, 4:30 PM, and 7 PM, transforming casual coffee runs into spontaneous dance breaks.
“At Third Wave Coffee, we’ve always believed in doing things differently – whether it’s how we brew coffee or build community inside our cafés,” said Third Wave Coffee co-founder Ayush Bathwal. “With ‘Slice of Joy,’ we’re inviting customers to experience something new. The ‘Sip Sip Bite’ jingle isn’t just a song – it’s a celebration of our baristas, our culture, and this exciting new chapter.”
Best known for its premium brews and community-first ethos, Third Wave’s foray into pizza is a cheeky nod to the joy of comfort food done right. Think of it as a match made in heaven or at least in a well-designed café with cheesy slices meeting artfully poured flat whites.
The pizzas, available nationwide starting this week, aim to serve up more than just food they’re meant to be shared, Instagrammed, and savoured alongside the brand’s signature blends. The campaign is already sparking buzz online, with users grooving along to the jingle and sharing their own Sip Sip Bite moments.
True to its name, Slice of Joy is a celebration of the simple pleasures of hot coffee, fresh pizza, and the warm camaraderie of your favourite café crew. In a world of grab-and-go, Third Wave Coffee invites you to sip, stay, and maybe even dance.
MAM
VML India lands two finalist spots at Cairns Hatchlings 2026
The Mumbai agency is back in Australia with two teams, a UN brief and 24 hours to impress
MUMBAI: VML India is heading to Australia again. The Mumbai-based creative agency has secured two finalist spots at the Cairns Hatchlings 2026 competition, one in the Audio category and one in Design, making it the only Indian agency to have reached the finals in both editions of the contest since its launch in 2025.
Four people will make the trip. Senior copywriter Shilpi Dey and senior art director Raj Thakkar will compete in Audio. Art directors Shabbir and Shruti Negi will go head-to-head with the world’s best in Design. The finals take place at the Cairns Convention Centre from 13th May, culminating in an awards ceremony on 15th May.
The work that got them there is worth examining. For the Audio category, Dey and Thakkar tackled a brief for LIVE LIKE MMAD with a campaign called Inner Voice, Interrupted. Using spatial audio techniques, the campaign recreates the overwhelming self-doubt that descends after a long workday, physically panning negative thoughts left and right before cutting the noise entirely to reveal a confident inner voice. Strategically targeted at commuters via Spotify during evening rush hours, the campaign reframes the hours after work as an opportunity for personal growth and charitable action.
For the Design category, Shabbir and Negi worked on a brief for Canteen’s Bandanna Day, a campaign highlighting how cancer pushes teenagers out of their own defining moments. Using a pixelated design language to create stark contrast between a blurred world of isolation and a focused world of connection, the campaign, titled The Flipside of Cancer, shows teenagers fading into the background of birthdays, skateparks and school proms. As a Canteen bandanna appears, the blur flips and the teenager snaps back into sharp focus.
Kalpesh Patankar, group chief creative officer of VML India, made no attempt to disguise his satisfaction. “We are immensely proud to see our teams consistently excel on the Cairns Hatchlings platform since its inception,” he said. “They have masterfully tackled challenging briefs across diverse categories, demonstrating both layered storytelling and a unique creative approach. This exceptional teamwork is truly inspiring.”
Dey and Thakkar, returning to the finals after last year’s run, were candid about the demands of the audio medium. “It’s one of the most demanding mediums, where we only have a few seconds to capture a listener’s world with sound alone, so absolute clarity is essential,” they said. “The true measure of creative work is its ability to create positive change, and our audio submission was made to help those who need it most while encouraging people to silence the inner voices that hold them back.”
Shabbir and Negi, competing in Design for the first time, described the experience as “a completely different beast.” “We see it as an opportunity to showcase our expertise, raise the bar, and challenge ourselves in new ways, while also learning from creative minds from across the globe,” they said.
In Australia, the four finalists will face a live 24-hour brief from the United Nations before presenting in a live pitch session. Twenty-four hours, one brief, one shot. VML India has been here before. It knows exactly what is at stake.
