GECs
Pinterest unveils ads, strikes international mobile deal
MUMBAI: After announcing its intention to do so last month, the fast-growing social network unveiled its new ‘Promoted Pin’ advertisements recently. The pins are marked by a subtle label below the item description. In a blog post, Pinterest CEO and co-founder Ben Silbermann said ‘Promoted Pins’ are still in a testing phase and “nobody’s paying for anything yet – we want to see how things go and, more than anything, hear what you think.”
San Francisco-based Pinterest promises the ads will be tasteful, transparent and relevant: “No flashy banners or pop-up ads,” Silbermann said in the blog post. The ads will appear in both Pinterest’s online and mobile apps, and are being rolled out now to a small portion of users for feedback.
Don’t expect the ads to remain unpaid for long. Once fine-tuned, Pinterest is expected to open the floodgates for its first revenue-generating product. With an estimated 53 million users and a value of $2.5 billion, ads should significantly cushion four-year-old Pinterest’s coffers.
In a separate development, Pinterest announced Thursday a deal to place a special widget on Android phones sold through Spanish mobile giant Telefonica. Pinterest already has an Android app, but the prominently placed widget will update faster and allow non-users to search it for shopping, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
No money is involved in the deal, but Pinterest is hopeful it can add international users, as well as bolster its mobile footprint. Telefonica has about 316 million customers in Europe and Latin America.
GECs
EPIC Company unifies all brands under single EPIC identity
IN10 Media rebrand aligns TV, digital and films into one ecosystem
MUMBAI: The EPIC Company, formerly known as IN10 Media Network, has announced a sweeping brand consolidation, bringing its television channels, digital platforms and content IPs under a single identity, EPIC.
The move is aimed at simplifying the company’s structure while creating a more connected content ecosystem spanning television, digital and films. By aligning multiple verticals under one umbrella, the company is looking to present a sharper, more cohesive face to both audiences and partners.
As part of the transition, several channels have been rebranded to align with the EPIC identity. EPIC will now operate as EPIC TV, while Nazara becomes EPIC Bharat, Filamchi is now EPIC Bhojpuri, Gubbare transitions to EPIC Kids, and ShowBox is reintroduced as EPIC Music. Ishara will continue under the identity EPIC Parivaar, maintaining its core positioning.
The company has also refreshed EPICON, its streaming platform, to reflect a more unified and modern brand experience. The overhaul is designed to improve content discovery and create a seamless experience across platforms.
This consolidation follows the recent launch of EPIC Studio, a unified production arm that brings together Juggernaut Productions and MovieVerse Studio, as the company expands its footprint across films, OTT and television.
The EPIC Company managing director Aditya Pittie said, “As our scale has grown, it has become important to simplify how we operate and how we present ourselves to the ecosystem. This consolidation gives us a clearer, more future-ready structure to partner, invest, and build at scale, while ensuring that for viewers, the experience is more seamless and intuitive.”
With the rebrand, The EPIC Company is positioning itself as a platform-agnostic content network, focused on scale, simplicity and integrated storytelling. By bringing everything under one banner, it is aiming to make its content universe easier to navigate and harder to ignore.
