Brands
Timex marketing head Varun Malik says time’s up
MUMBAI: Time waits for no man, and neither does Varun Malik. The head of marketing at Timex group India has wound up his tenure at the watchmaker after a mere seven months, clocking out on 11 December following a swift ten-day notice period.
Malik, who joined the company only in June to oversee a glittering stable of luxury and premium brands—Timex, Guess, Versace, Salvatore Ferragamo and Daniel Wellington—cited personal reasons and a desire to explore fresh professional horizons. His departure leaves a portfolio spanning over 3,000 retail touchpoints and the company’s direct-to-consumer business without its brand steward.
The exit is particularly striking given Malik’s pedigree. Before his brief Timex stint, he spent three years as head of marketing at Shalimar Paints, where he orchestrated campaigns garnering 95 million-plus views and a testimonial series watched 10 million times. Prior to that, a six-year run at Reebok India saw him build running communities and sponsor marathons, plus stints at the Times Group, DLF, Samsung and Red FM.
The company disclosed the departure to the Bombay Stock Exchange in a regulatory filing, with Dhiraj Kumar Maggo, vice president for legal, human resources and company secretary, signing off on the notification. No replacement has been announced.
One wonders whether Malik’s next venture will prove more timely—or if his seven-month watch at Timex was simply a case of being fashionably early to the exit. Either way, the clock keeps ticking.
Brands
Godrej clarifies ‘GI’ identifier after logo similarity debate
Says GI is not a logo, will not replace Godrej signature across products.
MUMBAI: In a branding storm where shapes did the talking, Godrej is now spelling things out. Godrej Industries Group (GIG) has issued a clarification on its newly introduced ‘GI’ identifier, addressing questions around its purpose and design following a wave of online criticism. At the centre of the debate were two concerns: whether the new mark replaces the long-standing Godrej logo, and whether its geometric design mirrors other corporate identities.
The company has drawn a clear line. The Godrej signature logo, it said, remains unchanged and continues to be the sole logo across all consumer-facing products and services. The ‘GI’ mark, by contrast, is not a logo but a corporate group identifier intended for use alongside the Godrej signature or company name, and aimed at stakeholders such as investors, media and talent rather than consumers.
The need for such a distinction stems from the 2024 restructuring of the broader Godrej Group into two separate business entities. With both continuing to operate under the same Godrej name and signature, the identifier is positioned as a way to differentiate the Godrej Industries Group at a corporate level.
The rollout, however, triggered a broader conversation on design originality. Critics pointed to similarities between the GI mark’s geometric composition and logos used by companies globally, raising questions about distinctiveness.
Responding to this, GIG said its intellectual property and legal review found that such overlaps are common in minimalist, geometry-led design systems. Basic forms such as circles and rectangles appear across dozens of brand identities worldwide, the company noted.
It added that the identifier emerged from an extensive design process and was chosen for its simplicity, allowing it to sit alongside the Godrej signature without competing visually. While acknowledging that elemental shapes may appear less distinctive in isolation, the group emphasised that the mark is part of a broader identity system that includes a custom typeface, sonic branding and other proprietary elements.
Following legal and ethical assessments, the company said it found no impediment to using the identifier, reiterating that the GI mark is a corporate tool not a consumer-facing symbol.
In short, the logo isn’t changing but the conversation around it certainly has.
