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Digital is boring
MUMBAI:Digital medium was often criticised by the old school advertisers. That‘s nothing surprising. But now a few members from the new school have started criticising it as well.
Egyptian advertising agency Elephant Cairo creative director Ali Ali said, They disliked digital because it interrupted comfortable (and profitable) models of linear storytelling. Although, in my opinion its boring.
As part of its continued focus on infusing consumer insights into technology innovations, Motorola recently hosted a series of focus groups with consumers in the New York and Los Angeles metro areas to discuss their TV-related experiences.
Ali said speakers and organisers at Cannes should stop their dull fascination with interactive and embrace the sense of fun that defined this International festival of creativity.
Currently there is a lot of digital and social media, â€?and every seminar starts to sound the same,” asserted Ali, whose agency created the “Never Say No to Panda”ads.
The seminars this week aim to deal with topics such as paid-earned-owned media and social transformation.This is all important, but the similarities of issues make people yawn. I‘m not saying digital is wrong. Obviously digital is the future but digital is old. I think the festival needs to move on to more fun things. This industry is becoming less and less fun as we go along.
Ali also claimed that people doing great in advertising are people who love what they do. He also gathered a lot of acknowledgement from the crowd for saying that most consumers are smarter than the average client.
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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.
