MAM
Twitter and Kingfisher co-created Name Targeted videos for IPL fans
MUMBAI: Wouldn’t it be great to have the celebrity you swear by mention you in a Tweet, or send you a personalised video message? Social media platform Twitter understands the influence an actor or a sports star has in our lives, and how by bringing these stars close to their fans, an amazing engagement can be created. Riding on this thought, it had devised a campaign for its long term partner Kingfisher for the IPL season. Conceptualised by Twitter India, the campaign allowed the brand to record the star players from six major IPL teams customised messages with fans’ names in them –a first of its kind marketing initiative in APAC, the social media giant claimed.
To make this possible, Twitter went through its archival data looking out for popular first names. Along with it came each person’s preferences and interests including sports.
“We looked into the data and drew a pattern on it. For example, if there are significant number of ‘Amit’s as Mumbai Indian fans, we would add ‘Amit’ to the list of people, and Kingfisher would get the Mumbai Indians team to record a personalised message for all the ‘Amits’,” Twitter India Business Head Taranjeet Singh explained the mechanism behind the campaign.
Though Kingfisher’s IPL campaign on Twitter had started along with season 9, it wasn’t until the season gained momentum in its third and last quarters that Name Targeting was initiated. Once started, it was a high frequency campaign that generated close to 500 odd videos dedicated to fans. Given that Vivo IPL 9 was a pre scheduled event, it allowed Twitter and the creative team from Kingfisher to plan a month ahead. Though most videos were shot before the tournament began, some were done while IPL season 9 was running based on the feedback on the campaign.
While team Twitter worked closely with the brand, the campaign required quick response and production of content to keep up with Twitter’s data base in a very short time which was made possible with the collaborative effort of the brand’s creative agency JWT, and digital agency 22Feet.
“We received excellent feedback for this campaign. With the help of the Twitter team, we were able to create something intangible for the IPL fans, and we could feel their appreciation for the campaign in the form of Tweets and messages. Apart from the paid campaign, the videos themselves generated several organic impressions for us riding on the brand power,” shared United Breweries, marketing SVP Samar Singh Sheikhawat.
While the campaign’s scale otherwise required a significant amount of time and monetary investment, having an existing partnership with Twitter put Kingfisher at an advantage when planning this campaign. Being sponsors for six of the IPL teams also acted in the brand’s favour, as it allowed Kingfisher access to the cricket stars as part of the sponsorship commitment. The initiative was included in the overall budget the brand set aside for IPL 9, which, according to Sheikhawat, could be close to 30 percent of the brand’s marketing budget for this financial year.
This is the second time in a row that Kingfisher has tied up with Twitter India for its IPL campaign. Sheikhawat asserted that this campaign proved to be a great opportunity to leverage the brand’s partnership with Twitter. The fact that the campaign was tailor made for Kingfisher only added to the advantage.
“From day one the response was high for the campaign, with 250 per cent increase in the brand’s Daily Positive Sentiment. Not to mention that the brand interacted with over 85,000 IPL fans over the course of the campaign through the videos,” Taranjeet Singh added.
‘Daily Positive Sentiment’ is a unit or score coined by Twitter that measures the overall sentiments behind tweets targeted at a celebrity, a brand or a handle, or even a hashtag or a campaign.
“Daily Positive Sentiment gives out the general emotion behind most of the tweets on a subject. We use a tool called Crimson hexagon that does the analysis on emotions behind tweets after assimilating certain keywords and other data points,” Taranjeet Singh explained.
In line with Facebook’s reactions the Daily Positive Sentiment score is a powerful tool to gather consumer insight for brands.
When asked if Twitter would be willing to partner with other brands and build a campaign using Name Targeting, Taranjeet Singh responded with, “We don’t work with clients on a transactional basis. We look at their objective and then we come up with solutions on how to shape those business objectives through our platform. If we have a client on board whose communication object requires a campaign and name targeting works to achieve its communication objective, we propose it to the brand. But if its campaign requires other innovations such as conversational videos, tweet camps, and other such initiatives that we have earlier offered our clients, we will suggest those. Or maybe we come up with an entirely new solution.”
In parting, Taranjeet Singh added that the Indian market has become a seat for innovations on the partnership front for Twitter, with many more exciting projects in the pipeline.
Brands
Estée Lauder to shed 10,000 jobs as new boss bets on digital shift
The cosmetics giant raises its profit outlook but stays silent on a possible merger with Spain’s Puig, as job cuts deepen and a three-year sales slump weighs on the turnaround
NEW YORK: Stéphane de La Faverie is not done cutting. Estée Lauder announced on Friday that it plans to eliminate as many as 3,000 additional jobs, taking its total redundancy programme to as many as 10,000 roles, up from a previous target of 7,000 announced a year ago. The company, which owns La Mer, The Ordinary, Tom Ford, and Aveda, employs roughly 57,000 people worldwide. The mathematics of what is now being contemplated is stark.
The fresh round of cuts is expected to generate a further $200 million in savings, bringing the total annual savings from the programme to as much as $1.2 billion before taxes. That money, De La Faverie has made clear, will be ploughed back into the turnaround.
A CEO in a hurry
De La Faverie, who took the helm in January 2025, inherited a company that had endured three consecutive years of annual sales declines. His response has been to move fast and cut deep. A significant portion of the latest redundancies reflects his push to reduce headcount at US department stores, long a cornerstone of Estée Lauder’s distribution model but now a channel in structural decline. In their place, he is accelerating the shift toward faster-growing online platforms, including Amazon.com and TikTok Shop, a pivot that is reshaping not just where Estée Lauder sells but how it thinks about its customers.
The numbers are moving in the right direction
Despite the pain, there are signs the medicine is working. Estée Lauder raised its profit outlook for the remainder of the fiscal year, guiding for adjusted earnings per share in the range of $2.35 to $2.45, above analyst estimates and a notable step up from the $2.05 to $2.25 range it had guided for in February. Organic net sales growth is expected to come in at 3 per cent, the company said, at the high end of the range it set out in February.
The share price tells a mixed story. After De La Faverie took charge, the stock surged nearly 60 per cent, buoyed by investor optimism that a longtime company insider could finally arrest the decline. But 2026 has been rougher: the shares have fallen 27 per cent this year, weighed down by disappointing February results and the overhang of unresolved merger talks with Spanish beauty giant Puig Brands SA. The company gave no additional details about those discussions on Friday, leaving the market to guess.
Silence on Puig
The proposed tie-up with Puig remains the most consequential unknown hanging over Estée Lauder. A deal with the Barcelona-based group, which owns brands including Carolina Herrera and Rabanne, would reshape the global luxury beauty landscape. But with nothing new to say and a turnaround still very much in progress, De La Faverie is asking investors to trust the process.
Three years of sales declines, 10,000 job cuts, and a merger that may or may not happen. At Estée Lauder, the overhaul has barely started.
