iWorld
YouTube India taps Gunjan Soni to drive next phase of growth
MUMBAI: YouTube has picked a heavyweight to steer its India ambitions. Gunjan Soni, the former Zalora chief executive and Myntra marketing whiz, has been named country managing director, YouTube India — in a move that underlines the platform’s laser focus on India’s booming creator economy.
Announcing the appointment, YouTube Asia Pacific vice-president and managing director Gautam Anand hailed India as one of YouTube’s “most vibrant and crucial markets”, adding that Soni’s arrival signals an even stronger commitment to creators, users, and India’s digital future.
With over two decades of leadership experience across e-commerce, tech, consulting, and media, Soni brings heavyweight credentials. Her CV reads like a greatest hits album: she led the turnaround of Jabong under Myntra, turbocharged Zalora’s regional expansion in southeast Asia, helped launch Hotstar at Star India, and pioneered data-led marketing at McKinsey.
Fortune 40 under 40 honouree and board member at CBRE group, Soni is no stranger to building brands at scale — nor to nurturing ecosystems where creativity and commerce collide.
Now based in Mumbai, Soni’s new playbook for YouTube India is packed with ambition: strengthening the creator economy, expanding shopping and video commerce, growing shorts and connected TV, and deepening user engagement across generations. In her own words, the goal is to “unlock intuitive, innovative formats” that empower Indian storytellers — from school kids shooting shorts to grandparents binge-watching devotional channels.
“As a family of enthusiastic YouTube users ourselves — from my seven-year-old nephew to my 70-something mother — I’m truly excited to lead a platform that touches lives across generations,” said Soni in a spirited note to the community.
iWorld
Meta introduces new AI tools to boost discovery-to-purchase journey
From shoppable Reels to generative video, platforms get smarter at turning attention into sales.
MUMBAI: Meta is turning “scroll and stop” into “scroll, stop, and shop” and it’s using AI to make the whole journey feel almost effortless. The company has announced several new tools and enhancements designed to help brands guide people from discovery to purchase more effectively, while delivering more relevant and personalised experiences across its platforms.
Creators can now add product links more broadly on Instagram Reels, turning their content into shoppable moments. Businesses in 22 countries, including India, will soon be able to share their product catalogues with creators, opening up a new sales channel for brands and fresh monetisation opportunities for creators.
The Creator Marketplace has also been upgraded with enhanced target audience filtering, integrated with Ads Manager. This helps businesses quickly find creators who are a strong match for their goals. Campaigns using Partnership Ads deliver, on average, 19 per cent lower CPAs, 13 per cent higher click-through rates, and 71 per cent higher median brand lift.
Meta is expanding Reels Trending Ads inventory with new content categories including TV & Movies, Travel, Business, Finance & Investments. According to Meta’s analysis of 59 studies, Reels Trending Ads delivered an incremental 6.6 percentage point Ad Recall lift compared to control groups.
AI-Powered Shopping Enhancements
- Product Set Optimisation is now in testing, allowing retail media networks to promote specific products with detailed reporting. Early results show 17 per cent lower median seller cost per purchase.
- Product Showcase is being expanded so marketers can upload one image or video and let Meta’s AI automatically add relevant products as a carousel when it improves performance.
Meta is expanding its generative AI capabilities with:
- UGC-style videos featuring avatars and voiceovers
- Easier voiceover translation and text overlay translation in a single streamlined flow
- New tools to automatically turn product catalogues into dynamic video ads for Reels
Early testing of the Advantage+ creative video generation tool showed a 10 per cent increase in CTR and 8 per cent increase in CVR on average. Campaigns using catalog product video saw 20 per cent more conversions per dollar, while Reels placements with catalog product video delivered 33 per cent higher incremental conversions.
Industry voices welcomed the updates. Vikas Chawla of Social Beat called Partnership Ads a “flywheel” for authentic content that converts. Niti Kumar of Spark Foundry and Sadhvi Dhawan of Blink Digital highlighted the power of Reels Trending Ads for cultural relevance and guaranteed share of voice. Ramasish Bhowmik of Adbuffs noted that Meta’s GenAI tools are giving teams a clear competitive edge.
In a world where attention is fleeting but shopping intent can spark in seconds, Meta is betting that smarter AI will help brands turn discovery into decisions faster than ever. The message is clear: the future of advertising isn’t just about reaching people, it’s about reaching them at exactly the right moment, with exactly the right product.
