Applications
WeChat aims to reinvent social communication on mobile in India
MUMBAI: WeChat, a global mobile social communication application, has unveiled its latest brand campaign to boost its marketing effort with Bollywood actors Parineeti Chopra and Varun Dhawan as the brand ambassadors of WeChat in India.
The brand campaign captures the “true spirit” of WeChat of being young, effervescent and instant. The campaign also showcases WeChat’s distinctive features like voice messaging, group chat, moments and special emoticons.
With a bundle of features like ‘Hold-To-Talk’, WeChat is all set to re-define the way people communicate with each other. WeChat’s ‘Hold-To-Talk’ is the first application in communication space which enables users to send voice messages at the touch of a button.
‘Moments’ is another key differentiating feature of WeChat where users can post image or text and share with their selected friends in a secure way.
According to the company, WeChat has already become a rage amongst Indian youth and is the top app downloaded daily on the AppStore. WeChat’s daily users have grown five fold in the last one month.
WeChat has also introduced “Official Accounts” on its platform, a feature that can be utilised by companies and merchants to build interactivity with their fans in a new and innovative way. Brands like Café Coffee Day, Big Bazaar, Yahoo! Cricket, Goibibo, Santa Banta, and Tradus are amongst the earliest brands to start their official accounts on WeChat in India, the company said.
The global top free mobile social communication application WeChat, was launched in India in July last year across iPhone, Android, Symbian, and Windows Phone platforms and was recently launched on the BlackBerry platform as well.
Applications
With 57 per cent single new users, Ashley Madison rebrands as discreet dating platform
Platform says majority of new members now identify as single
INDIA: Ashley Madison is shedding the “married-dating” label that defined it for two decades, repositioning itself as a platform for discreet dating in what it calls the post-social media age.
The rebrand, unveiled in India on 27 February, 2026, marks a structural shift in business model and identity. Once synonymous with married dating, the company now describes itself as the “premier destination for discreet dating” under a new tagline: Where Desire Meets Discretion.
The pivot is data-driven. Internal figures show that 57 per cent of global sign-ups between 1 January and 31 December, 2025 identified as single: a notable departure from the platform’s married core. The company argues that its community has already evolved beyond its original positioning.
“In an age where our lives have been constantly put on public display, privacy has become the new luxury,” said Ashley Madison chief strategy officer Paul Keable. He framed the platform’s offering as “ethical discretion” for singles, separated, divorced and non-monogamous users seeking private connections.
The shift also taps into wider digital fatigue. A global survey conducted by YouGov for Ashley Madison, covering 13,071 adults across Australia, Brazil, Canada, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Switzerland, the UK and the US, found mounting discomfort with hyper-public online lives.
Among dating app users, 30 per cent cited constant swiping and messaging as a source of fatigue, while 24 per cent pointed to pressure to curate public-facing profiles and early personal disclosure. Some 27 per cent said fears of screenshots or information being shared contributed to exhaustion; an equal share cited unwanted attention.
The retreat from oversharing appears broader. According to the survey, 46 per cent of adults actively try to keep most aspects of their life private online. Only 8 per cent feel comfortable sharing most aspects publicly, while 35 per cent say they are becoming more selective about what they disclose.
Ashley Madison is betting that this cultural recalibration towards controlled visibility can be monetised. By doubling down on privacy infrastructure and reframing itself around discretion rather than infidelity, the company is attempting to convert reputational baggage into a premium proposition.
