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Virgin gets Ranbir, Genelia as brand ambassadors; aggressive campaign mooted for South India
BANGALORE: Virgin Mobile, the Tata Teleservices (TTSL) youth-focused mobile brand, has launched its GSM services for the South India region.
Additionally, the company has also roped in Bollywood actors Ranbir Kapoor and Genelia D’Souza to endorse the ‘Virgin‘ brand. TTSL has a brand franchisee arrangement with Richard Branson’s Virgin Group.
Explains Virgin Mobile India (Virgin) CEO M A Madhusudan, “Initially, our instructions were to build Virgin as a ‘brand of choice’ and not to focus on numbers. We have been quite successful in that. Ranbir and Genelia have been appointed brand ambassadors to inch closer to the youth and to take the brand to the next level.”
Said Virgin CMO Prasad Narasimhan, “In the beginning, along with television and outdoor, we will use print to create a sort of a bang and later use it as and when required. We will use radio for engagement and frequency.” While Virgin’s outdoor campaign has already commenced, five TVC’s – one for brand building and four on tariffs – will hit the air across the South Indian television screens over the next few days. “We are waiting for deliveries to be completed to all our outlets before we start advertising. We will be using television channels and programmes that are relevant to the youth – this would be sports, music, movies, news, even GEC’s with spots being beamed at suitable periods during the day,” said Narasimhan. While Bates handles the creative work, Mindshare handles the media buying for Virgin. bcwebwise.com is its web creative agency.
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Virgin has planned an aggressive multi-media campaign covering television, radio, outdoor, cinema and internet which will be supplemented by print ads released during strategic periods.
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Inshorts Group chief Deepit Purkayastha joins IAB video council for Southeast Asia and India
The co-founder and chief executive of the short-form content platform has been inducted into the IAB SEA+India Video Council, giving India a stronger voice in shaping digital video frameworks
NOIDA: India has long been the world’s most chaotic, multilingual and mobile-first digital market. Now, one of its most prominent short-video executives is getting a seat at the table where the rules are written.
Deepit Purkayastha, co-founder and chief executive of Inshorts Group, has been selected as a member of the IAB SEA+India Video Council for 2026. Run by the Interactive Advertising Bureau, the council brings together senior leaders from Southeast Asia and India to shape standards, best practices and measurement frameworks for the fast-evolving video and digital advertising ecosystem.
The timing is pointed. According to the IAMAI-Kantar Internet in India Report 2025, over 588 million Indians are now consuming short-video content, with growth increasingly driven by rural and non-metro audiences. India’s active internet user base has crossed 950 million, with 57 per cent of users now coming from rural markets. Yet the frameworks that govern how video consumption is measured and monetised were largely designed for single-language, Western markets and have struggled to keep pace with the scale, diversity and complexity of India’s digital landscape.
Purkayastha is no stranger to these debates. He already serves on the AI Council at Marketing and Media Alliance India and as co-chair of the Digital Entertainment Committee at the Internet and Mobile Association of India. His induction into the IAB SEA+India Video Council extends that influence into the global video standards arena.
Inshorts Group sits squarely at the intersection of these forces. Its flagship product, Inshorts, India’s highest-rated short news app, reaches 12 million active users with 60-word news summaries. Its sister platform, Public App, reaches 80 million monthly active users across more than 700 districts and 12 languages, serving communities that most global platforms barely register.
Purkayastha said the opportunity was about building something more representative. “India today sits at the centre of the global video ecosystem, but the frameworks that define how value is created and measured have not always kept pace with the realities of our market,” he said. “Being part of the IAB SEA+India Video Council is an opportunity to contribute to a more representative and future-ready approach, one that accounts for diversity in language, context, and user intent.”
As a council member, Purkayastha will contribute to shaping regional standards across video advertising, measurement and platform governance, with a focus on frameworks that are native to India’s multilingual, mobile-first ecosystem rather than imported from global benchmarks designed elsewhere.
For years, India has been content to play by rules written for other markets. Purkayastha’s induction is a signal that it is done waiting to be consulted and ready to start writing them.
