Author: Kashmeera Sambamurthy

ShareChat’s Chief Commercial Officer quits, DDB Mudra Group bolsters leadership team; CXO Moves at Ather Energy, Reliance Retail and more

Mohit H Chablani started his career at Intelenet Global Services, and went on to work across Euclid Infotech Services, Aujas Networks, Media.net, ZEDO and Gameloft. (Representative Image: Ryoji Iwata via Unsplash)

Executive moves in the world of brands and agencies. Find out who’s moved up, in and out.

Bookstrapping: 10 must-read books released in 2022

We are specifically focussed on genres such as productivity, efficiency, psychology, science, biography and marketing. And of you missed the news about these books , we hope our column will serve as a reminder. (Representative Image: Amazon, The Morning Books Show)

Its time for that compelling compilation. Our year-end compilation of books is specifically focused on non-fiction and on genres such as productivity, efficiency, psychology, science, biography and marketing.

Weekly Shorts: How Indian micro and nano-influencers shined in 2022

Various metrics suggest that influencer marketing potential for raising brand awareness and producing an ROI is still untapped. Even though the various influencer categories are developing at a strong engagement rate, the number of influencer posts have mostly stayed the same in 2021 and 2022. (Image source: @meh_chali, @akshxtx_pagar, @yash_chokshi, @surbhirohra, @venurasuri)

What’s buzzing in influencer marketing and the creator ecosystem? What’s the next big thing coming down the line? Catch the big trends and hot topics in our weekly shorts.

Emily in Paris to Mad Men: Shows that have powerful characters from media and adland

These celebrated TV shows reveal the nuances of these industries backed by powerful and engaging stories and characters. We suggest add these to your watchlist or re-watchlist now. If you have any recommendations for us, drop your suggestions on our social pages. (Stills from YouTube videos)

The relentless world of media, advertising, and PR has been showcased through remarkable storytelling and stellar actors in these shows. Go watch or re-watch now.

BYJU’s Divya Gokulnath on 2022: The year of lessons, resilience, and India’s reckoning

“We wanted to learn from our mistakes and I am happy to share that right from advertising standards to the way in which we communicate our offerings to students to the way in which we service them, on all these parameters, we have improved as a collective body.” - Divya Gokulnath, co-founder, Byju's (Representative Image via LinkedIn)

BYJU’s co-founder Divya Gokulnath shares, “I have always believed in facing headwinds head-on. It is simply not enough to sit back and wait for change to come.”

Indian gaming studios see big action in 2022; take bolder, ambitious bets

Nazara is aiming to identify opportunities within the gaming, esports and adtech arenas internationally particularly with a focus on established gaming IP’s/studios, those advancing in technologies like web3, Virtual Reality, and AI.

Several gaming founders and industry executives that Moneycontrol spoke to, expect more gaming-focused funds being set up in the country and global funds to make sizeable investments in the sector in the coming years.

upGrad to increase marketing spends by 40 percent in 2023, plans return on TV as advertiser

upGrad, which works with an in house creative team, will focus on telling real-life success stories in advertisements and other communications. However, Ankit Khirwal says there will be no change in investments in social influencers as they’d continue to endorse the brand even in 2023. (Stills from the ads)

The edtech company’s new marketing plan for 2023 will be focussed on conversation around the mother brand.

CRED takes subversive advertising mainstream. But there’s a flipside to the rise of Credvertising

In hot pursuit of virality, the last few months of 2022 saw brands using various tactics, gimmicks and pranks to garner attention and likes on the internet. The objective is to create curiosity and push consumers to look up for a product or service being promoted. The execution and idea can be a fake fight, meme or bizarre execution that hardly resembles an ad. (Still from the ad)

While there is no defined law on such kind of advertising, ad industry watchdog Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI) can take suo moto action against the advertisement.

Deltatech Gaming CEO Shivanandan Pare: More skilled women playing Poker on platform, expect a 70:30 men to women ratio soon

"GST for all players should be charged on the rake earned by the platform. Otherwise, it becomes extremely unfair because as platforms we are not taking any part of the money brought in by the players or the pool, which gets created. It is like asking a stock broker who has started a trading platform to pay GST on the volume of trading being done on the platform. From all the interactions we’ve had with the government officials and decision making bodies it is clear that they understand the way we operate. If it pans out any other way nobody will survive," says Shivanandan Pare

Shivanandan Pare, Executive Director and Chief Executive Officer – Deltatech Gaming, on the need for regulations in gaming, poker’s popularity, confusion around GST calculation and IPO plans.

Viral CRED Ad: Masked as whacky classified newspaper ads, CRED’s new campaign goes viral

The company's recent campaign features Anil Kumble, Jhulan Goswami, Sunil Chhetri, MC Mary Kom and Viswanathan Anand who are disappointed when they realise that they have been asked to read a simple script telling the viewers that they can pay multiple bills on the CRED app.

The ads are being rolled out in the form of newspaper listings, announcements and apologies. The catch is they barely look like ads except the fact that each listing mentions CRED.