iWorld
Amazon miniTV friendship day campaign creates buzz amongst brands
Mumbai: Amazon miniTV friendship day campaign #CaseTohBantaHai has marked a new milestone in creating content-led entertaining experiences for its audiences. Interestingly, brands across the vertical started participating in the campaign.
When the campaign was unveiled, the streaming service opened the floor to the audiences to put forth an Atrangi Ilzaam on their friends, which is the unifying theme of their tentpole comedy reality show Case Toh Banta Hai.
The 360-degree integrated campaign started with Twitterati making funny and outlandish accusations against their friends. Along with that, a barrage of relatable memes inspired by the show also started pouring in.
Soon enough, brands jumped onto this bandwagon and #CaseTohBantaHai took over the internet. Over twenty brands including Swiggy, Pizza Hut, Noise, Tinder, Durex, Domino’s Pizza, Baskin-Robbins, Shemaroo, Dunzo, Shaadi.com, Gold’s Gym, PharmEasy, Mad Over Donuts, and Cleartrip joined the digital jest. The brands used this opportunity to poke fun at their customers’ traits, thus leaving the digital-first generation in splits.
Some of these hilarious ‘cases’ are given below:
Domino’s
Swiggy
Tinder
Durex
Pizza Hut
Baskin-Robbins
This campaign also coincided with the “Case Toh Banta Hai Celeb 2.0” reveal, which announced a stellar line-up of celebrities who will appear on the show. Concurrently, the celebrities slated to appear on “Case Toh Banta Hai” turned the excitement up a notch higher. Abhishek Bachchan, Shahid Kapoor, Ananya Panday, Chunky Panday, Sonakshi Sinha, Sanjay Dutt, and Pankaj Tripathi, amongst others, took to their social media to answer their summons to the katghara. These posts got people talking and amplified the buzz around #CaseTohBantaHai and also the anticipation for the show.
“Case Toh Banta Hai,” a one-of-its-kind courtroom comedy reality show, features Riteish Deshmukh, Varun Sharma, and Kusha Kapila in the roles of Janta Ka Lawyer, Defense Lawyer, and Judge, respectively. Each week, a new celebrity appears on the show, facing hilarious accusations and having to defend themselves. Produced by Banijay Asia, Case Toh Banta Hai is the perfect blend of sketches, talk shows, and impromptu comedy. Viewers can enjoy new episodes every Friday for free, exclusively on Amazon miniTV, which you can find on Amazon’s shopping app and Fire TV.
iWorld
Snapchat parent Snap cuts 16 per cent of workforce in AI-driven restructuring
The Snapchat parent is axing around 1,000 jobs and closing 300 open roles to save $500m, as artificial intelligence makes smaller teams the new normal
CALIFORNIA: Snap is snapping. The Snapchat parent has confirmed plans to cut around 1,000 employees, roughly 16 per cent of its full-time workforce, as it bets that artificial intelligence can do what headcount once required. Shares jumped more than 10 per cent in premarket trading on the news, a brisk vote of confidence from a market that has watched the stock shed about 31 per cent this year.
The restructuring, which also closes more than 300 open roles, follows pressure from activist investor Irenic Capital Management, which holds an economic interest of about 2.5 per cent in the company and has been loudly pushing Snap to tighten its portfolio and lift performance. The firm got what it asked for, and then some.
Chief executive Evan Spiegel told employees the cuts would reduce annualised expenses by more than $500m by the second half of the year. The company expects to incur charges of between $95m and $130m related to the layoffs, mostly severance, with the bulk landing in the second quarter. Staff in Snap’s North America team were asked to work from home on the day of the announcement.
The financial backdrop is not without bright spots. Snap expects first-quarter revenue to rise around 12 per cent to approximately $1.53 billion, broadly in line with analyst estimates. Adjusted core profit for the January to March quarter is forecast at about $233m, comfortably ahead of Wall Street’s expectation of $186.8m.
The harder question surrounds Specs, Snap’s augmented reality smart glasses subsidiary, which Irenic has urged the company to spin off or shut down entirely. The unit has absorbed more than $3.5 billion in investment and burns through approximately $500m in cash annually. Snap is pressing ahead regardless, with a consumer product expected later this year, even as Meta leads the market in the segment.
Spiegel is betting that leaner teams, smarter machines and a consumer AR play can restore Snap’s credibility with investors who have run out of patience. The redundancy notices have gone out. The harder restructuring, the one that requires a hit product rather than a headcount reduction, is still very much pending.
