Author: Aashrey Baliga

Is Elon Musk ticking off too many business ambitions?

Musk has been vocal in the months leading up to his acquisition that he wanted to revamp how Twitter verifies accounts and handles bots. While the decision, predictably raised a storm on Twitter, his staccato decision making and rapid-fire announcements have raised serious concerns on the future of the platform. Twitter despite being much smaller than Facebook, You Tube and Instagram has de facto become the world’s virtual town square, where news breaks happen; movie stars; top athletes and heads of state share lock horns and their thoughts and squabble.

Combining the blue tick and Twitter premium subscription is certainly a problem. The best way forward would be to separate the two. This will make the whole process, transparent, equitable and remunerative and help Twitter retain its credibility without jeopardising its economics, suggests Lloyd Mathias.

Simply Speaking: A brand is a dream, and its real home is the unconscious

Brands have created their own brand worlds. They've opened a window to this world through their products, advertisements, catalogues, stores, celebrity endorsements, and so on. All these get subconsciously associated to their brands.

Fashion brands know the power of tapping latent emotional desires. They convey and own dreams and aspirations. They derive more from authority, class and provenance of the brand than mere expertise. They know the mood and feeling of the dream world that they want to connect with and that becomes their marketing strategy.

BYJU’s faces backlash over Lionel Messi, FIFA association

Byju’s has been looking to cut costs aggressively since last year after it reported a net loss of Rs 4,589 crore in FY21 (2020-21), the largest by a startup in India for that year. In October last year, the company laid off over 2,500 employees, or about 5 percent of its workforce across departments, in order to reduce "redundancies" and turn profitable for the current fiscal year FY23 (2022-23).

The announcement has irked netizens who are unleashing their fury on the edtech firm which has recently announced mass layoffs.

Network18’s Hindi and English channels lead with highest market share in multiple markets

Operating EBITDA came in at Rs 137 crore for the financial year ended March 2023 as against Rs 1,080 crore in the previous year. EBITDA is earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation. (Representational image via Unsplash)

As per latest BARC data, both News18 India and CNN-News18 have maintained their position of being the number one channel across markets

The Twitter hullabaloo. And why it should choose to be ‘boring’ instead

With the acquisition of Twitter, the South African-American-Canadian citizen said that he would make the platform’s algorithm open-source, combat spambots and promote free speech.

The Elon Musk Twitter Takeover feels more like a soap opera, rather than a platform which the world’s richest man wants to be “maximally trusted” by users and advertisers.

Lionel Messi is Byju’s global brand ambassador for Education for All

The long-term engagement, which began as Lionel Messi embarked on his final campaign to win the FIFA World Cup 2022 as captain of Argentina’s national football team, was to see him feature in campaigns promoting Byju’s Education For All, Storyboard18 reported.

Byju’s Education for All (EFA) is the not-for-profit, social impact division of BYJU’S which currently serves 5.5 million children all over the country

Indian gaming industry clocked $2.6 bn in FY22, set to cross $8.6 bn by FY27: Lumikai Report

Coming to gamers in the country, Indian gamers spent an average of 8.5 hours per week on mobile games in FY22. Time spent on top midcore games is approximately double of that of top casual games, with Free Fire leading the pack with average of 109 minutes spent/user/day. (Representative Image via Unsplash)

A young population with growing gaming-ready smartphone ownership and access to cheap data has led to sustained growth in gaming in India.

Indian marketers have found a brigade of new brand ambassadors

Using employees in advertisements for marketing products and services is a cost-effective and smart way for a brand to develop a personal relationship with its target customers. Consumers are able to relate with the employee featured in the ad and form a trustful relationship.

Watch brand films from Swiggy, Marico, TCS, HDFC Bank, Trivago, The Whole Truth, Shaadi.com, that feature their in-house brand ambassadors – employees and founders.

Are startup founders altering the way brands are built?

Startups have emerged as one of the key spenders in the advertising expenditure (AdEx) second only to big players such as FMCG and auto. (Representational image via Unsplash)

Startup marketers have been often blamed for employing “earn and burn” strategy over long-term brand building when it comes to advertising.