Blogs

Witty, slightly sarcastic takes on all things AI — from buzzwords to buyer’s guides, hallucinating chatbots to agentic assistants. If you’re a marketer wondering what LLMs have to do with ROI (and chai), you’re in the right place.

A vibrant collage showcasing scenes from a lively Indian monsoon celebration, featuring people dancing, sharing chai, and enjoying the festive rains with energetic movement and traditional attire.

In the Warm Steam of the Monsoon, a Cup of Tea—and a Campaign—Find Their Moment

Caught between celebration and critique, I step into the rainy world of Red Label Tea’s new campaign—a monsoon anthem remixed with nostalgia, dance, and bold marketing moves. Through a first-person lens (and a steaming cup of chai), I explore what makes this campaign so irresistible—and why its cultural savvy is not above strategic scrutiny.

In the Warm Steam of the Monsoon, a Cup of Tea—and a Campaign—Find Their Moment Read More »

KitKat chocolate bar with Spotify partnership, phone screen showing music discovery promp

Break the Loop, Mind the Bump: A Wry Audit of KitKat’s Latest Musical Break

Nestlé’s “Break The Loop” campaign, dreamed up with Spotify, invites us to scan our KitKat wrapper for a musical shakeup but delivers an experience with more branding sizzle than sonic substance. From Ayushmann Khurrana’s inoffensive ambassadorial presence to a jingle that’s memorably… forgettable, the campaign lands somewhere between clever utility and elevator muzak. It’s a fine specimen of urban, tech-driven marketing: phygital overlays, QR codes promising adventure, and packaging that doubles as a digital passport—yet for all its technical bravado, the music barely lingers once the wrapper’s in the bin. Where the campaign pops is in its seamless product-to-platform leap and urban relatability; where it lags is in delivering a true auditory hook worthy of the “break” it promises. Will we remember the music or just the marketing?

Break the Loop, Mind the Bump: A Wry Audit of KitKat’s Latest Musical Break Read More »

A biscuit bitten into the shape of Tamil Nadu sits against a blue postage stamp backdrop, with ‘TAMIL’ embossed, a playful goat wearing sunglasses, and regional icons like a lighthouse and a green bus.

When a Biscuit Became a Love Letter

In Tamil Nadu’s tea stalls, a humble ritual—biting Milk Bikis biscuits around their flower borders—became the starting point for a statewide marketing phenomenon. On Tamil Nadu Day, Britannia’s “A Bite of TN” campaign transformed this simple habit into cultural tribute, with biscuits sculpted into local icons and stories splashed across print, billboards, and digital. At the heart of it all is a single biscuit: nibbled, playful, and stamped with the pride of an entire state—proof that in the right hands, even snacks can become symbols of community and imagination.

When a Biscuit Became a Love Letter Read More »

Colorful digital illustration of Jaipur’s Hawa Mahal, vividly painted and animated in a celebratory palette.

The Alchemy of Animated Heritage: How a Brazilian Studio and a Small Boy With Gloved Hands Disrupted India’s Paint Wars

In the summer of 2025, the familiar silhouette of the Gateway of India burst into unexpected brilliance—not at the hands of a painter’s brush, but through the magic touch of a small animated boy. Birla Opus Paints and Brazil’s Zombie Studio have turned Indian monuments into vibrant canvases, upending a staid market with Pixar-level animation, strategic disruption, and an unexpectedly poignant lesson: sometimes, all it takes to see the world differently is the courage to take your gloves off.

The Alchemy of Animated Heritage: How a Brazilian Studio and a Small Boy With Gloved Hands Disrupted India’s Paint Wars Read More »

Mumbai dabbawalas carrying virtual stacks of Maybelline Teddy Tint lipsticks in a CGI campaign blending local tradition and global beauty branding.

The Pixel-Perfect Lie: Maybelline’s Mumbai Mirage

In a city where culture pulses through everyday rituals—from corner-chaai interactions to the precision of dabbawala deliveries—Maybelline’s pixel-perfect teddy bear campaign loomed large, but landed light. Blending CGI spectacle with a nod to local tradition, the global beauty brand’s Mumbai takeover reveals more than marketing ambition; it unveils a persistent disconnect between intention and understanding. Behind the gloss lies a ste

The Pixel-Perfect Lie: Maybelline’s Mumbai Mirage Read More »

A diverse group of people working out together in a modern gym, demonstrating the democratization of fitness across India’s urban and regional communities, with the atmosphere highlighting a vibrant, inclusive fitness culture.

The Great Indian Protein Pilgrimage: How America’s Strongest Man Became the Ambassador for a Nation’s Fitness Renaissance

Larry Wheels, America’s record-holding powerlifter, became an unlikely ambassador for India’s ₹98 billion fitness revolution through MuscleBlaze’s “PROTEIN THALA” campaign. This cross-cultural marketing analysis examines how celebrity endorsement navigates authenticity challenges in a market where 73% of Indians remain protein deficient, yet fitness consciousness spans from metropolitan gyms to tier-3 cities. The campaign represents a cultural artifact of India’s wellness transformation, where traditional dietary practices encounter Silicon Valley biohacking trends, revealing the complex dynamics of democratised fitness consumption across economic segments.

The Great Indian Protein Pilgrimage: How America’s Strongest Man Became the Ambassador for a Nation’s Fitness Renaissance Read More »

Priyanka Raina in a cream waistcoat holding her infant son beside an array of Maate baby-care products displayed against a white backdrop

The Label-Reading Revolution

This in-depth analysis examines how Suresh and Priyanka Raina’s #EffectiveBabyCare×Maate campaign transformed a simple baby care product launch into a cultural movement about ingredient transparency and conscious parenting. Written in The New Yorker’s signature style, the piece dissects the strategic brilliance and potential pitfalls of founder-led marketing, exploring how the campaign capitalised on millennial parents’ research obsessions while addressing their blind spots in baby care product selection.

The article reveals how Maate’s authenticity-driven approach—combining cricket celebrity credibility with entrepreneurial expertise—successfully bridged traditional Indian Ayurvedic wisdom and modern safety standards. Through detailed analysis of their digital storytelling techniques, cultural positioning, and competitive landscape, the piece offers valuable insights for digital marketers seeking to balance authentic brand building with measurable performance outcomes in an increasingly skeptical consumer environment.

The Label-Reading Revolution Read More »

A Meal That’s Lost in Translation

McDonald’s India’s collaboration with Ranveer Singh is less a celebration of fast food than a spectacle in overdrive—a campaign where branding drowns out appetite, and the celebrity’s kinetic persona eclipses the meal itself. In this pointed critique, we unravel how the advertisement trades visual deliciousness for personality cult, offering a seminar in sensory overload and marketing gone awry. As the meal itself struggles for screen time amid a feverish montage, what emerges is not so much a fast food promotion as a case study in how volume and celebrity can obscure the pleasures of food. The article interrogates both the intent and the execution, suggesting that in the noise, the actual product is lost—an object lesson in contemporary advertising’s excess.

A Meal That’s Lost in Translation Read More »

A vibrant, floating island scene illustrating six adventuring scenarios — including a spice market, dog walk, garden café, lost puppy, and campfire — featured in a newspaper advert for the Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra, positioned as an AI-powered companion, with Google Gemini branding.

When Print Speaks: The Strategic Imperative for Digital Marketers in the Voice-First Era

Samsung’s recent voice-activated print campaign for the Galaxy S25 Ultra represents something far more significant than a clever marketing stunt. It marks a pivotal moment in digital marketing—a demonstration of how traditional media can be reimagined through emerging technologies to create genuinely transformative customer experiences.

When Print Speaks: The Strategic Imperative for Digital Marketers in the Voice-First Era Read More »

Promotional image for Glow & Lovely featuring a woman with medium skin tone against a pink background, with the Hindi text 'Apni Roshni Baahar La' and social media follower statistics for Shehnaaz Gill displayed

The Glow & Lovely Mirage: A Digital Marketing Masterclass in Pseudo-Feminist Deception

In the rarefied world of beauty marketing, where semiotics meet salesmanship with the precision of a Swiss watch, few campaigns have embodied the contradictions of our age quite like Glow & Lovely’s ‘Apni Roshni Baahar La’ (Bring Out Your Inner Light). This advertisement represents a masterclass in what scholars delicately term ‘pseudo-feminism’—a phenomenon whereby brands appropriate the language of liberation whilst perpetuating the very systems they purport to challenge.

The Glow & Lovely Mirage: A Digital Marketing Masterclass in Pseudo-Feminist Deception Read More »

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