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Vodafone to leverage McLaren Mercedes partnership
BANGALORE: Indian Mobile telephone player Vodafone, as a title partner for the McLaren Mercedes team since 2007, is raising its association with motor racing sport to the next level.
Stating that racing is expected to grow in India with the first ever Indian Grand Prix 2011, Vodafone has planned many initiatives in reaching out to its consumers, creating a brand recall.
Some of the initiatives that are on the anvil include:
Vodafone Race to fame-life in the fast lane- the mobile company will offer 4 winners –two each of consumers and global mobile enterprise customers, an experience to spend a weekend with the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes team during the motor racing event scheduled at Noida between October 28 and 30.
Another initiative is the Vodafone Drive into the Big League – Vodafone has extended an exclusive growth opportunity to small and medium business enterprises (SME) to have their logo on the Vodafone McLaren Mercedes cars that will race at the motor racing event in India. Vodafone says that it has already received more than 50,000 entries till the closing date of 25 September.
Vodafone is also organising customer activation programmes with a replica of the McLaren Mercedes F1 car in the country’s prime metros at high footfall areas such as malls and electronic parks gearing up to the grand finale at New Delhi.
The company also brought Vodafone’s ace champion driver Lewis Hamilton to Bangalore today to demonstrate his skills behind the wheels of his racing car, the Mercedes MP4-23 that took him to the 2008 F1 Drivers Championship. Over 10,000 people witnessed the ace driver burn the rubber at the NICE road, around 300 meters of which was converted into a race track.
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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.
