Brands
Wavemaker India retains media duties of Perfetti Van Melle
New Delhi: Wavemaker India today announced that it has retained media duties for Perfetti Van Melle. Wavemaker has been furthermore entrusted with integrated media duties for Perfetti Van Melle India.
Wavemaker India has been the media agency on records since 2006 in India. The multi-agency pitch saw participation from other leading agencies. The account will continue to be handled out of Gurugram office.
PVM director marketing Rohit Kapoor said, “Wavemaker has been a trusted partner for nearly 14 years now and we are delighted that our partnership will start its 3rd innings after a well contested integrated media pitch process. Wavemaker has over the years played a significant role in our success and we hope this innings will be an equally good one for both of us.”
Wavemaker CEO – South Asia Ajay Gupte expressed, “We are extremely thrilled to renew our relationship with Perfetti Van Melle. It is a matter of great pride to win additional mandate of integrated media and continue the traditional media mandate. I am confident with our new operating system, newer models in analytics, e-commerce and media we will be able to unlock growth and drive further efficiency to the brand”.
In addition, Wavemaker has been appointed by the sweets giant to handle the account in other main markets US, China, Netherlands – as well as in the UK, MENA, Belgium, Turkey and Indonesia – after a series of local pitches held throughout 2020. Wavemaker now handles 85 per cent of Perfetti Van Melle’s global media spend.
Wavemaker chief client officer and Head – North & East Manso Datta said, “This is an extremely exciting moment for us. To renew our 14 year long relationship and get entrusted with additional digital mandate over our core media mandate is a testament of the existing equity we enjoy with PVML along with our expertise and competency on digital media . We eagerly look forward to creating innovative and award-winning work for Perfetti Van Melle”.
Perfetti Van Melle is one of the world’s largest manufacturer and distributors of confectionery and chewing gum. Perfetti Van Melle India is the manufacturer of the brands like Mentos, Alpenliebe, Chupa Chups, Center Fresh, Happydent, Center Fruit and many more.
Brands
Samsung certifies 1,000 Maharashtra students in AI and coding
The South Korean electronics giant marks its first large-scale skilling push in the state, with women making up nearly half the national programme’s enrolment
PUNE: Samsung has put 1,000 students in Maharashtra through a certified training programme in artificial intelligence and coding, the largest such drive the South Korean electronics company has run in the state and a signal that corporate India’s skilling ambitions are moving well beyond the boardroom brochure.
The certifications were awarded under Samsung Innovation Campus (SIC), the company’s flagship corporate social responsibility programme, which launched in India in 2022 with the stated aim of democratising access to future-technology education. The 1,000 graduates were drawn from four institutions: 127 from Savitribai Phule Pune University, 373 from Pimpri Chinchwad University, 250 from D.Y. Patil University’s Ramrao Adik Institute of Technology and 250 from Anjuman-I-Islam’s Kalsekar Technical Campus. All completed training in either AI or coding and programming, the two disciplines Samsung has identified as the critical pillars of the digital economy.
The programme does not stop at technical training. Soft-skills development and career-readiness modules are baked into the curriculum, a deliberate attempt to close the gap between what universities teach and what employers actually want.
“India’s digital growth story will ultimately be shaped by the quality of its talent pipeline,” said Shubham Mukherjee, head of CSR and corporate communications at Samsung Southwest Asia. “As technologies like AI move from the periphery to the core of industries, skilling must evolve from basic training to building real-world capability. This milestone in Maharashtra reflects how industry and academia can come together to create a future-ready workforce that is both globally competitive and locally relevant.”
The Maharashtra drive sits within a rapidly scaling national effort. Samsung Innovation Campus trained 20,000 young people across India in 2025, hitting its stated target for the year. Women account for 48 per cent of national enrolments, a figure the company cites as evidence of its push for an inclusive technology ecosystem. The programme is implemented in partnership with the Electronics Sector Skills Council of India and the Telecom Sector Skill Council.
Samsung, which is marking 30 years in India this year, runs SIC alongside two other initiatives, Samsung Solve for Tomorrow and Samsung DOST, as part of a broader effort to build what it calls a generation of innovators with both the technical depth and the problem-solving mindset to thrive in a fast-moving digital world.
A thousand certified students is a tidy headline. Whether they find jobs that match their new skills is the harder question, and the one that will ultimately determine whether corporate skilling programmes like this one are genuine pipelines or well-photographed gestures.
