Brands
WhatsApp named India’s strongest brand in YouGov 2026 rankings
MUMBAI: WhatsApp has cemented its place as India’s most powerful brand, topping YouGov’s Best Brand Rankings 2026 with an Index score of 60.5. In a market where usefulness often matters more than glamour, the messaging app’s everyday indispensability has paid off handsomely.
YouGov’s rankings measure brand health through a composite Index that tracks impression, quality, value, reputation, satisfaction and recommendation. WhatsApp scored strongly across all six, reflecting how deeply it is woven into daily life, from family chats and work groups to payments and customer service.
Close behind are fellow digital heavyweights YouTube, which secured second place with a score of 58.7, and Google at 56.6. Together, the top three underline a clear trend: brands that simplify life and deliver consistent value are winning Indian consumers’ confidence.
E-commerce and digital payments also made a strong showing. Amazon placed fourth overall with 55.2, followed by Google Pay at 54.6. Among homegrown names, Amul held its own in sixth place with a score of 53.6, while Flipkart and Tanishq featured comfortably within the top ten. Samsung and Instagram rounded off the list, highlighting the continued pull of technology and social platforms.
Beyond the established leaders, YouGov’s data also spotlighted brands gaining momentum at speed. Quick commerce player Blinkit emerged as India’s fastest-improving brand, posting the largest year-on-year jump in Index score at plus 6.3. Spotify followed with a gain of 4.9, while Samsung and LG both recorded improvements of 4.6.
Consumer services and lifestyle brands were not far behind. Coca-Cola, Urban Company and Threads all posted notable gains, while travel and subscription services such as Singapore Airlines, Philips and YouTube Premium also climbed steadily.
On the global stage, the picture looks strikingly similar. WhatsApp leads worldwide brand health rankings, ahead of Samsung and YouTube, with Google and Netflix also featuring prominently. Retail, household and automotive brands including Adidas, Nike, Dettol, Colgate and Toyota round out the global top performers.
The message from YouGov’s 2026 rankings is clear. In India and beyond, brands that combine trust, frequency of use and genuine utility are not just liked, they are relied upon.
Brands
IICT partners with Gativedhi to bring studio production tools to students
New MoU lets students explore AI-driven production pipelines for AVGC-XR
MUMBAI: The Indian Institute of Creative Technologies (IICT) has teamed up with Gativedhi Technologies to give students a front-row seat to modern studio production. The collaboration will integrate Gativedhi’s AI-powered production intelligence platform, Shotrack, into academic programmes, letting students experience the workflow systems used by animation, VFX and gaming studios.
Under the MoU, faculty, students and researchers will get hands-on access to Shotrack through beta programmes, pilot deployments and academic evaluations. This will allow them to explore simulated production pipelines, understand asset management, track tasks and monitor schedules, essentially seeing how complex projects come together behind the scenes.
Shotrack is designed to tackle a key industry challenge: when multiple studios work on the same project, differing internal systems often create bottlenecks, slow approvals and complicate version control. The platform provides a unified production environment, enabling smoother collaboration across distributed teams while generating operational insights and predictive analytics to optimise crew allocation, forecast schedule risks and manage costs.
The collaboration also opens doors to Gativedhi’s wider ecosystem. Upcoming tools include StudioTrack, for studio operations management covering budgeting, recruitment and IT infrastructure, and WorkTrack, which measures workflow efficiency and team productivity across industries.
IICT plans to embed these tools into programmes covering animation pipelines, VFX workflows, gaming production and media project management. Students will also benefit from guest lectures, masterclasses, workshops, internships and research projects that connect academic learning with real-world studio practices.
IICT CEO Vishwas Deoskar, said the partnership provides “An environment where production pipeline tools can be explored, tested and refined while students gain insight into how large-scale productions are organised.”
Gativedhi Technologies founder & CEO Senthil Kumar added, “This collaboration introduces students to real-world studio management tools and helps us improve our platform with academic feedback.”
With Shotrack in classrooms, India’s future animators, VFX artists and gaming producers will get a taste of studio life long before they step into one.
