Rahul Sharma, a 31-year-old software engineer from Pune, knew exactly which car he was going to buy six weeks before he visited a dealership. He had watched 23 YouTube reviews, compared trim variants on three automotive portals, stress-tested EMI calculators, joined an MG owners’ community on Reddit, and even run a detailed feature comparison through an AI assistant. When he finally walked into the showroom, it was not to be persuaded. It was to sign.

His experience is not an outlier. It is rapidly becoming the norm.

Across India’s booming passenger vehicle market, which crossed the 4.7 million unit mark in FY2025, a profound behavioural shift is underway. The traditional automotive purchase funnel, in which the dealership served as the primary arena of discovery, comparison, and emotional conviction, is being fundamentally disrupted. Digital ecosystems are now doing the heavy lifting of influence long before a salesperson enters the conversation.

For automotive CMOs and CX and marketing leaders, this raises an urgent strategic question that goes well beyond campaign optimisation: At what stage of the journey is the purchase decision actually being made today?

The Funnel Has Been Inverted

The classical model of automotive retail placed the dealership at the centre of the universe. Awareness was built through television and print. Test drives and salesroom conversations shaped consideration. The decision happened at the negotiating table. This model held for decades.

Today, the journey of influence has been reorganised. Awareness, consideration, and even emotional attachment are increasingly formed in digital environments – on YouTube channels run by automotive creators, in WhatsApp groups shared among enthusiast communities, through configurators and AR walkthroughs on brand websites, and increasingly through AI-powered research assistants that synthesise specs, ownership costs, and resale values in seconds.

“ Digital discovery is now the primary consideration engine. Consumers increasingly complete 70-80% of their research journey before entering a dealership. YouTube reviews, creator-led comparisons, Reddit communities, AI-assisted search, and OEM configurators are shaping brand perception earlier than traditional retail experiences. As marketers, this shifts investment toward always-on content ecosystems, influencer credibility, first-party data strategies, and CRM journeys designed to nurture intent long before lead submission.”

– Vipin Yadav, Vice President & Marketing Head, DriveX.

The data support this directional shift. A 2024 study by Google India and Kantar found that over 78% of Indian car buyers conduct online research before visiting a dealership, and nearly 60% had already shortlisted their preferred model before their first physical interaction with the brand. The average Indian car buyer now spends over 14 hours researching online across a purchase cycle that can stretch from six weeks to six months.

The implication for automotive marketers is seismic. If conviction is being built upstream in YouTube comment sections, on CarDekho comparison pages, through CarDekho AI chat tools, and in creator-led Instagram Reels, then the traditional dealership visit is increasingly a ratification exercise, not a discovery mission.

The Creator Economy Rewrites the Test Drive

No force has disrupted automotive influence more visibly than the rise of creator-led automotive content. Channels like Autocar India, Evo India, Vaibhav Tare Automobile, and a growing cohort of regional language creators have built loyal audiences that trust their reviews implicitly – often more than they trust the brand’s own marketing communications or dealership staff.

This trust asymmetry is significant. Creators are perceived as independent, experience-driven voices. They test vehicles under real-world Indian road conditions – the Pune-Mumbai expressway, Bangalore’s urban grid, Rajasthan’s highway stretches, and communicate in common parlance that resonates with the aspiring middle-class buyer. They reveal what a brochure will not, e.g. cabin noise at 120 kmph, air conditioning performance in 44-degree heat, or the reality of ground clearance on a potholed city road.

“The traditional test-drive funnel isn’t disappearing – it’s shifting upstream. Discovery now happens long before a buyer walks into a showroom, through creator-led content, peer communities, AI-powered comparisons, and personalised research journeys that feel far more transparent than traditional sales experiences.

This shift is forcing brands to rethink how trust is earned. Performance marketing alone is no longer enough. The real battleground has moved to the discovery layer of the internet – where credibility ecosystems, influencer partnerships, community validation, and content that educates rather than sells now determine which brands enter consideration at all.

For automotive marketers, the strategic imperative is clear – own the discovery layer or cede it. Brands that invest in GEO-optimised content, AI-visible storytelling, and integrated digital discovery pipelines are the ones shaping purchase intent before a competitor even enters the frame.”

– Roshan Mohan, Co-founder and CMO, FlowBlinq.

OEMs have responded by forging relationships with creators. What was once managed as a subset of PR is now a dedicated discipline within automotive marketing teams, complete with tiered creator programs, early vehicle access, co-created content formats, and performance attribution frameworks that track creator-driven leads through to dealership visits and bookings.

EV Brands Accelerated the Digital-First Playbook

If one segment has stress-tested and validated the digital-first purchase model most aggressively, it is the electric vehicle category. Brands like Tesla, MG Motor, BYD, and a wave of emerging EV players entered the market without the luxury of legacy dealership networks and deep retail footprints. Necessity became virtue.

Range calculators, charging network maps, TCO (Total Cost of Ownership) comparators, and community-driven ownership content on platforms such as YouTube and dedicated EV forums created a richly informed buyer who arrived at the showroom with sophisticated questions, not basic ones.

This pattern has profound implications for how traditional ICE-focused OEMs think about their EV marketing strategies. The playbook that works for a Baleno or an Innova Crysta – heavy retail activation, dealer-push incentives, test drive events translates imperfectly to an EV buyer who has arrived pre-convinced but needs ecosystem assurance (charging infrastructure, service network, software update cadence) rather than product conviction.

The Younger Buyer’s Trust Architecture

India’s automotive market is getting younger. The median age of a first-time car buyer has dropped steadily over the past decade, and Gen Z buyers are entering the market with a fundamentally different epistemology of trust.

For this cohort, the hierarchy of credibility is inverted relative to their parents’ generation. Where a 55-year-old buyer might trust a dealer’s recommendation above an anonymous online review, a 26-year-old is likely to weigh a YouTube creator’s two-hour walkaround, 200 Reddit comments from real owners, and an AI-generated comparison summary above any conversation with a showroom salesperson.

This shift in trust architecture demands a fundamental rethinking of what automotive marketing is actually for. If the goal of marketing was once to create awareness and generate showroom footfall, the goal today is to engineer digital conviction, to ensure that when a young buyer’s purchase intent crystallises, the brand’s narrative, content, and community have already done the persuasion work.

Several OEMs are investing heavily in what practitioners call “content ecosystem architecture” – a deliberate strategy of seeding the digital environments where buyer research happens, namely YouTube, Instagram, Reddit, automotive portals, Google Search, with content that shapes perception at every micro-moment of the research journey.

The Dealership Is Not Dead. It Is Evolving.

It would be a mistake, and an overreach, to declare the dealership obsolete. The evidence does not support that conclusion. What the evidence does support is that the dealership’s role within the purchase journey is changing, and that change is significant.

The dealership is transitioning from being a “decision-making environment” where product discovery, comparison, and persuasion happen to a “transaction and fulfilment environment” where emotional confirmation, paperwork, financing, and relationship initiation happen. This is not a demotion. It is a specialisation. But it requires a fundamentally different design of the physical experience.

“Digital discovery will definitely play a very important role in opinion-creation and decision-making, but never at the cost of the physical “experience”. Digitally, one will get as much information as possible through reviews, customer clubs, platforms and influencers. But these are “factoids”, based on others’ opinions formed out of their experiences. The journalists and influencers who are invited for the launch test drives create content to feed you. The final nourishment comes from the actual physical test drive. The smell, the ambience, the handling, the acceleration, the comfort, the AC effectiveness, the rear legroom, and the braking – all are sensory parameters. And they change from person to person. The ample acceleration for one may be just average for another. The interior ambience may be just the right size for one and a bit cramped for outstation travel for another. All that can be judged only through the physical test drive. The digital discoveries tell you only that much, which makes you create your shortlist for the test drive. Otherwise, journalists and influencers themselves would not be doing them, would they?”

– Avik Chattopadhyay, Co-founder, Expereal.

Premium and luxury vehicle segments retain the strongest case for the dealership as the decision environment. The sensory dimensions of a Mercedes-Benz or BMW purchase, the smell of the leather, the sound of the door closing, the tactile quality of materials, cannot be fully replicated digitally. For high-involvement, high-ticket purchases, the dealership remains an essential emotional validator.

Similarly, financing conversations, particularly for first-time buyers navigating EMI structures, insurance bundling, and exchange valuations, continue to benefit from face-to-face engagement. And post-purchase relationship management: service scheduling, loyalty programs, and ownership communities remain a dealership-anchored function that smart OEMs are investing in heavily.

Rethinking Attribution: Where Does the Sale Actually Begin?

One of the thorniest challenges facing automotive marketing leaders today is the question of attribution. In a world where a customer may have touched 15 digital touchpoints across six weeks before appearing in a showroom, how does a brand accurately measure what drove the sale? And how does it allocate the budget accordingly?

The traditional answer – last-click attribution that credits the dealership or the test drive dramatically understates the value of digital influence. It creates a systematic incentive to under-invest in the top-of-funnel digital work that actually builds the conviction that drives the visit.

Forward-thinking OEMs are experimenting with multi-touch attribution models, customer journey analytics platforms, and CRM integrations that attempt to stitch together the digital breadcrumb trail – search queries, page visits, configurator interactions, video completion rates with physical dealership events. The goal is a unified view of the customer journey that allows marketing investment to be calibrated against actual influence, not just last-mile conversion.

Platforms such as Google’s Automotive Audiences, Meta’s automotive targeting solutions, and dedicated automotive CRM platforms such as DealerSocket and Ackroo are being integrated into sophisticated marketing stacks that attempt to close this attribution gap. But the honest assessment from most CMOs is that the measurement challenge remains only partially solved.

Connected Customer Journeys: The New Competitive Frontier

The OEMs that will win the next decade of India’s automotive market are those that master what practitioners call the “connected customer journey” – a seamless, orchestrated experience that moves fluidly between digital and physical touchpoints without friction, repetition, or loss of context.

Imagine a buyer who configures a vehicle on a brand’s website at 10 PM, saves their configuration, receives a personalised follow-up WhatsApp message at 10 AM, books a test drive through the app, arrives at the dealership where the salesperson already knows their shortlist and budget range, and receives a financing offer pre-generated from their digital profile. That experience exists, in fragments, at some progressive OEMs today. It exists end-to-end at almost none.

Building this connected journey requires investment across technology (CRM, CDP, marketing automation), organisational design (breaking the digital/retail silos), and culture (rewarding lead-to-close holistically rather than by channel). These are not small asks. But the competitive cost of not doing it in a market where a competitor’s digital ecosystem is actively building conviction among your potential customers is rising rapidly.

The Strategic Imperative for Automotive Marketers

The death of the test drive funnel, as a singular moment of influence, does not mean the death of the test drive. It means the redesign of an entire system around a new behavioural reality.

For automotive CMOs operating in India today, the strategic imperatives are clear, if demanding. First, map the actual decision journey, not the assumed one. Use data, research, and honest customer conversations to understand where conviction is genuinely forming, not where the org chart suggests it should be forming.

Second, invest in digital ecosystem presence as aggressively as in retail activation. The content that lives on YouTube, the community that grows on Reddit, the configurator that delights at midnight – these are not supplementary to the purchase journey. They are the purchase journey for a growing majority of buyers.

Third, redesign the dealership experience for its new role. If the showroom is now where brand promise is fulfilled rather than where brand narrative is initiated, its physical design, staff training, and technology infrastructure must reflect that purpose.

And fourth, solve the attribution problem honestly. Not by declaring last-touch conversion the hero of the story, but by building measurement frameworks courageous enough to credit influence where it actually happens, even when that means crediting a YouTube creator’s review rather than a dealership demo.

India’s automotive market is at an inflection point. Digital ecosystems now shape customer conviction. The question is not whether brands will adapt. It is whether they will adapt fast enough, and completely enough, to compete in an era where the most important sales conversation is the one that happens before anyone picks up a phone to call the dealership.

Data Sources & References

1. Google India & Kantar – “Decoding the Auto Buyer’s Digital Journey” (2024)
2. Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM)
3. McKinsey & Company – “Winning in India’s Automotive Market” / “The Future of Automotive Retail” (2023–24)
4. JD Power India – India Sales Satisfaction Study & Automotive Digital Experience Studies (2023–24)
5. Verizon Media / Yahoo – “The Path to Purchase for Auto Buyers” (2022–23)
6. Deloitte – Global Automotive Consumer Study: India Supplement (2024)
7. RedSeer Consulting – “India EV Market: Consumer Behaviour & Digital Discovery” (2023–24)
8. Nielsen India – Digital Content & Creator Influence Studies (2023)
9. CarDekho Group / Girnar Software – Industry & Consumer Insights (2024)
10. Dentsu India / iProspect – Automotive Digital Marketing Benchmarks Report (2023–24)

This article was produced by the editorial team. All named executives are quoted in a representative editorial capacity. Statistical references are drawn from publicly available industry research.

“The views, opinions, and statements expressed by contributors and experts quoted in this article are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect those of this publication. While every effort is made to accurately represent and attribute quotations, the publication shall not be held liable for any inadvertent errors, omissions, misinterpretations, or inaccuracies in the quoted material.”

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PRESS RELEASE

Bengaluru, June 16th, 2026:

NSRCEL, the startup incubator of IIM Bangalore and one of India’s leading innovation and entrepreneurship hub, today announced the appointment of Rasika Prashant as its Chief Executive Officer, effective June 8, 2026.

The appointment marks a new chapter for NSRCEL as it continues to strengthen its role in enabling founders, accelerating innovation, and supporting startups that address real-world challenges across sectors. With deep roots in entrepreneurship and brand building, Rasika is expected to further expand the organisation’s impact through founder-centric programmes, strategic collaborations, and ecosystem-led initiatives.

An entrepreneur and business leader, Rasika is best known as the Co-founder and former Chief Marketing Officer of Tata Soulfull, where she helped build one of India’s pioneering millet-based food brands from the ground up. She played a critical role in driving the company’s brand strategy, product innovation, digital growth, and direct-to-consumer business, culminating in its successful acquisition and integration into Tata Consumer Products.

In her role as CEO, Rasika will lead NSRCEL’s vision of empowering entrepreneurs through world-class incubation, mentorship, access to capital and markets, and partnerships across academia, industry, government, and the investor community.

Commenting on her appointment, Rasika Prashant, Chief Executive Officer, NSRCEL, said:
“At NSRCEL, we believe entrepreneurship is a foundational driver of economic growth, job creation, and societal progress. As India’s innovation ecosystem enters its next phase of growth, I look forward to strengthening NSRCEL’s impact by adding depth, sophistication, and structured rigour to how we enable entrepreneurs. This means deepening founder capabilities through evidence-based learning and structuring our support systems with clear milestones and measurable outcomes”

A Computer Science graduate with an MBA, she began her career in marketing and digital strategy before taking on leadership roles in retail operations and entrepreneurship. Throughout her career, she has combined consumer insight with business execution to build purpose-driven brands and scalable growth strategies. Her contributions have been recognised through honours, including Marketer of the Year at MAA 2024, AdTech Marketer of the Year, and Impact Magazine’s Most Influential Women of 2025.

NSRCEL also expresses its appreciation to Anand Sri Ganesh, former CEO, for his leadership and contributions to the organisation. Under his stewardship, the incubator expanded its reach and strengthened its programmes and partnerships, laying a strong foundation for continued growth. The leadership transition reflects NSRCEL’s commitment to continuity while advancing its mission of enabling ambitious founders to build transformative ventures with lasting impact.

Disclaimer

The views, opinions, and perspectives expressed in guest articles and press releases published in this magazine are solely those of the respective authors and do not reflect the official policy, position, or opinions of Fixbracket.

While we strive to provide a platform for diverse and insightful perspectives, Fixbracket does not endorse, verify, or take responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information presented in guest contributions. Any reliance placed on such content is strictly at the reader’s discretion.

Fixbracket shall not be held liable for any errors, omissions, or outcomes arising from the use of information contained in guest articles and press releases.

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There is a moment that many banking customers know intimately. You log in, and the screen says –

“Good morning, Amit. Your account balance is ₹2,14,330.”

For a fleeting instant, it almost feels personal. Then the next banner offers you a home loan, the same one that has been there since January. The moment evaporates.

Banks and insurers have invested billions in personalization. So why does it still feel like a mail-merge?

This is the central paradox of personalization in Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) – an industry that holds more intimate data about human behavior than almost any other on earth, yet routinely delivers experiences that feel as generic as a mass-market flyer.
The problem is not a lack of investment. According to McKinsey, financial institutions have poured hundreds of billions into digital transformation over the past decade. Personalization platforms, CRM overhauls, and data lakes have proliferated.

Yet a 2023 Accenture survey found that 67% of banking customers feel the personalization they receive is “superficial” or “irrelevant.” The gap between ambition and execution has never been wider.

The reason is both structural and philosophical. Most BFSI personalization today is not really personalization at all. It is sophisticated templating, and understanding the difference is the first step toward closing the gap.

The Illusion of Personalization. When ‘Hi, Amit’ Is as Far as It Goes

Walk into any major bank’s digital product today, and you will find the hallmarks of first-generation personalization – your name on the dashboard, your most-used services surfaced to the top, perhaps a birthday message in November. These are not trivial achievements. They represent years of backend integration and UX work. But they share a fundamental limitation – they are driven by static identity, not dynamic behavior.

This is what we might call “Nominal Personalization”. The customer is recognized, but not understood. The system knows who you are; it does not know what you are doing, what you are about to need, or what would genuinely help you right now.

Compare that to what Contextual Personalization looks like in practice. A bank’s spending analysis feature should not just show you a pie chart of last month’s expenses. It notices that you have booked three international flights in 90 days and proactively surfaces its travel rewards card with a personalized ROI calculation based on your actual spend. Netflix’s recommendation engine – the gold standard most financial brands cite in internal decks but rarely emulate does not just remember what you watched. It models what you are likely to want next, based on the time of day, inferred recent mood shifts from genre switching, and what similar users chose.

The distance between “Hi, Amit” and “Your travel spending suggests you could save ₹18,000 a year with this card” is not merely cosmetic. It is the distance between recognition and relevance, and it is where the vast majority of BFSI brands are stuck.

“Personalization without intelligence is just templating and no amount of first-name tokens changes that.”

Why Most Personalization Is Rule-Based, Static, and Segment-Driven

To understand why BFSI personalization feels hollow, you need to understand how most of it is actually built. Beneath the glossy interfaces, the majority of personalization engines in financial services run on one of three architectures, and all three share the same fundamental flaw.

Rule-Based Engines

The industry workhorse. A compliance team and a marketing team sit down and define conditions – “If  a customer has a savings account and balance > ₹1 lakh and age > 35, show fixed deposit banner.” These rules are legible, auditable, and easy to explain to regulators. They are also brittle. Rules cannot adapt to a context they were not written for. They cannot learn. And as any data scientist who has inherited a legacy rules engine will tell you, they metastasize over time into thickets of contradictory logic that nobody fully understands.

Segment-Driven Targeting

The next evolutionary step beyond pure rules is segmentation. Customers are grouped by age, income band, product holding, or RFM score, and each segment receives tailored messaging. This is better than one-size-fits-all, but it reintroduces the generic experience through the back door. A segment is, by definition, a generalization. “Urban millennial with home loan” is not a person. Treating 400,000 people as if they are the same individual because they share three demographic attributes is not personalization; it is mass customization with extra steps.

Static Profiles

Perhaps the most pernicious limitation. Most CRM systems capture a snapshot of who a customer was at onboarding, updated sporadically when they call the helpline or take a new product. They do not capture the customer’s financial journey in motion—a sudden spike in medical payments, a pattern of late-night small-value transactions that may signal financial stress, or the six consecutive Saturdays spent browsing home loan calculators without converting. These behavioral signals are the raw material of genuine personalization, and they are going largely uncollected or unacted upon.

The Disconnect Between Data and Action

Here is the most striking irony in financial services – banks know more about their customers’ real financial behavior than almost any other institution on earth. Every transaction is a data point. Every ATM withdrawal at 2 a.m. tells a story. Every lapsed SIP is a signal of something. It could be a change in income, a loss of confidence, or a life event.

Yet this data sits largely inert in transaction ledgers, used primarily for fraud detection and regulatory reporting. The behavioral exhaust of daily financial life is not being converted into intelligence that drives the customer experience.

Why? Three structural reasons stand in the way.

Data silos

Retail banking, credit cards, insurance, and wealth management typically run on separate core systems, with separate data warehouses. Even within a single financial group, getting a unified view of one customer’s behavior can require crossing four different technology stacks.

Regulatory caution

Compliance teams are wary of being perceived as using intimate financial data for sales purposes. The result is an overcorrection. Data that could be used to genuinely help customers (flagging potential fraud earlier, proactively offering overdraft protection before a payment bounces) sits unused because no one wants to be the person who signed off on it.

Organizational misalignment

Personalization requires the marketing team, the data science team, the product team, and the technology team to operate in close coordination, with a shared definition of what a good outcome looks like. In most large financial institutions, these teams have separate P&Ls, separate quarterly targets, and separate ideas about what the customer journey should feel like.

Superficial vs. Contextual Personalisation. A Framework

The table below captures the core distinction between where most BFSI brands are today and where the leaders are heading.

The Insurance Sector’s Particular Blind Spot

If banks are behind on personalization, insurers are in a different time zone. The insurance sector has historically had one of the most transactional, low-engagement customer relationships in financial services. Most policyholders interact with their insurer twice: once when they buy the policy, and once when they file a claim. Everything in between is silence.

This is a missed opportunity of staggering proportions. Insurers possess, or could possess, a remarkable breadth of behavioral data by driving patterns (telematics), health metrics (wearables), home usage data (smart home devices), and travel behavior (card transactions). Progressive Insurance’s Snapshot telematics program demonstrated years ago that real-time behavioral data could be used to price risk more accurately and reward good behavior with lower premiums – a form of personalization that is genuinely valuable to the customer.

Yet most insurers still send the same annual renewal notice to a 28-year-old who runs marathons and a 58-year-old with three chronic conditions. The policy is the unit of analysis, not the person. Until insurers shift from product-centric to life-stage-centric engagement models, they will continue to be seen as vendors rather than partners.

The Road from Templating to Intelligence: What It Actually Takes

Genuine contextual personalization in BFSI is not a product you can buy from a vendor and deploy in a quarter. It is an organizational capability that must be built, and it requires changes at four levels.

Data Infrastructure

Real-time personalization requires real-time data. That means moving beyond nightly batch processing to streaming architectures – Apache Kafka, real-time feature stores, and event-driven decisioning pipelines. It means resolving the identity graph across channels so that a customer’s in-branch conversation, mobile app behavior, and contact center call are understood as part of a single coherent journey. This is expensive and time-consuming, which is why many banks are currently in the middle of multi-year cloud migration programs as a prerequisite.

Model Architecture

Rule engines need to be supplemented—not replaced—by machine learning models that can identify non-obvious behavioral patterns. Next Best Action (NBA) engines, pioneered at scale by firms like Pega and Salesforce, can process hundreds of contextual signals in real time to determine the most relevant intervention for each customer at each moment. The keyword is “supplement”. In a regulated industry, models need to be explainable, and human-readable rules remain essential for compliance.

Organizational Culture

The data science team can build the most sophisticated NBA engine in the world, but if the product team is still thinking in terms of “the home loan campaign” and “the credit card campaign,” the output will still be segment-driven. True personalization requires the organization to shift its mental model from campaigns, broadcast events aimed at groups, to journeys that are continuous, adaptive interactions with individuals.

Customer Trust and Consent

Perhaps the most underappreciated dimension. The more personal the personalization, the more important it is that customers understand how their data is being used and feel in control of it. Personalization that feels surveillance-like erodes the relationship it is meant to strengthen. GDPR and India’s DPDP Act are not obstacles to personalization; they are forcing functions toward a more transparent, consent-based approach that customers will ultimately trust more.

“The banks that will win the next decade are not those with the most data. They are those that can transform behavioral signals into genuinely helpful moments at speed, at scale, with consent.”

What Good Looks Like. Three Emerging Benchmarks

The good news is that the benchmarks for intelligent personalization in BFSI are becoming clearer. Three institutions stand out not for having solved the problem, but for having genuinely moved the needle.

DBS Bank (Singapore) has been widely recognized as one of the world’s most innovative banks, and its personalization strategy is a large part of why. DBS’s AI-driven insights engine, deployed across its mobile app in Singapore, India, and Indonesia, analyzes transaction patterns to generate proactive financial nudges. A customer whose grocery spend has increased 30% over three months might receive a suggestion to review their monthly budget. A customer who has been making EMI payments on time for 18 months might receive a pre-approved personal loan offer before they think to ask for one. DBS reported in its 2023 annual report that AI-personalized interactions drove a 20% higher product acceptance rate compared to generic outreach.

Bajaj Finserv (India) has made significant strides in using its Experia app to move from product-push to life-stage-aware engagement. Customers who have just taken a home loan are not immediately cross-sold a credit card. Instead, the system identifies that they are likely in a post-purchase consolidation phase and surfaces relevant content: home insurance comparisons, utility payment automation, and property tax reminders. The insight is simple but profound: the best time to sell the next product is not always now.

Conclusion. Intelligence Is Not Optional

Personalization has become one of the most overused words in financial services marketing. It appears in every strategy deck, every vendor pitch, every digital transformation roadmap. And yet, for most customers, the lived experience of financial services personalization remains generic at best and patronizing at worst.

The reason is not that the data does not exist. It does. The reason is not that the technology is unavailable. It is. The reason is that most BFSI organizations have confused the scaffolding of personalization such as CRM platforms, customer data platforms, marketing automation tools with personalization itself.

Real personalization is not about using someone’s first name. It is not about remembering their birthday. It is not about showing them products that their demographic segment statistically tends to buy. Real personalization is about understanding the specific, individual context of a specific human being at a specific moment and responding in a way that is genuinely useful, timely, and respectful of their autonomy.

That requires intelligence: computational intelligence to process signals at scale, organizational intelligence to act on them quickly, and emotional intelligence to know when to intervene and when to stay silent.

The institutions that crack this, and a small number are genuinely beginning to, will not just win market share. They will redefine what it means to have a relationship with a financial institution. They will transform a category that has been defined by transactions into one defined by trust. Personalization without intelligence is just templating. And in a world where customers have never had more choices, templating is no longer enough.

Sources: 

McKinsey & Company – Next in Personalization 2021, 2023 Update. | Accenture – Banking Consumer Study 2023. | Salesforce — State of the Connected Customer, 5th Edition 2023. | DBS Bank – Annual Report 2023. I  Forrester Research – The State of Digital Banking 2023. | Bajaj Finserv – Experia Product Documentation 2023. | HDFC Bank – echnology and Digital Transformation Report 2022–2023.

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The question arrived quietly, midway through a quarterly business review at one of India’s largest retail conglomerates. The Chief Marketing Officer paused, looked around the room, and asked:

‘Who, exactly, is our most valuable customer?’

What followed was not an answer. It was a slow, revealing unraveling. The CRM team cited loyalty-tier rankings. E-commerce pulled up purchase frequency from the marketplace dashboard. Digital marketing referenced ROAS-weighted cohorts. Finance had its own lifetime value model. Each number was real. None agreed.

The meeting had stumbled onto the central paradox of the modern Indian enterprise – an organisation drowning in data, yet starved of insight.

“We had seventeen dashboards and still could not answer a basic question about our customer with confidence. That was the moment we understood something was fundamentally broken.” – Chief Data Officer, leading Indian FMCG company

This gap between data availability and data usability is precisely where Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) have found their moment. And across sectors from banking to beauty to quick commerce, Indian enterprises are moving fast to close it.

The Fragmentation Problem and Why India Has It Worst

The modern Indian consumer is a study in digital omnipresence. She might discover a product on Instagram Reels, research it on a marketplace, message the brand on WhatsApp, earn loyalty points via a superapp, and still close the transaction at a physical store. Each interaction leaves a data signature. In the vast majority of Indian enterprises, each of those signatures lives in a different silo.

This problem is not unique to India, but India’s version of it is particularly acute, shaped by three structural forces that compound the challenge.

A Market Too Heterogeneous to Generalise

India is not one consumer market. It is a federation of several dozen or more, differentiated by language, culture, purchasing power, and digital maturity. A campaign that converts in Coimbatore may confuse consumers in Chandigarh. A price architecture built for metros collapses in Tier 3 towns. Without data unified at the individual level, not aggregated by segment or region, personalisation remains, at best, a sophisticated guess.

According to McKinsey’s 2023 India consumer research, brands that achieve genuine micro-segment personalisation report revenue lifts of 10-15% compared to peers relying on broad demographic targeting. In India’s fiercely competitive consumer landscape, that gap is existential.

The Omnichannel Explosion

India added over 250 million new internet users between 2019 and 2023, pushing total online reach past 900 million. This expansion was not gradual. It was compressed, turbocharged by cheap data, affordable smartphones, and a pandemic that digitised behaviours overnight.

As a result, brands must now maintain coherent relationships across channels they did not anticipate, at a pace their legacy infrastructure was never designed to support. Customers are omnichannel by default. Most enterprise data systems are still mono-channel by design.

The Privacy Inflection

India’s Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act, enacted in August 2023, marks a structural turning point. While enforcement timelines continue to be clarified, the direction is unambiguous – third-party data is becoming legally and commercially riskier to acquire, and customer consent is becoming a non-negotiable foundation for any data strategy.

In this environment, first-party data collected directly, transparently, and consensually is no longer merely a compliance advantage. It is an emerging competitive moat.

What the DPDP Act Means for Marketers

Under India’s Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, organisations must obtain explicit, granular consent before collecting and processing personal data. Consent must be specific to the purpose and easily withdrawable. Non-compliance carries penalties of up to ₹250 crore per violation. For marketers, this makes the CDP – as a system of record for consent and first-party data – not a strategic option, but a regulatory necessity.

What a CDP Actually Does and What It Does Not

There is considerable noise in the market about what a Customer Data Platform is, much of it vendor-generated. The definition that matters strategically is straightforward:

A CDP ingests data from every touchpoint where a customer interacts with a business and resolves it into a single, persistent, updatable profile that is accessible to every function – marketing, product, sales, and service.

It is not a CRM, which manages current relationships. It is not a data warehouse, which stores historical transactions. And it is not a marketing automation tool, which executes campaigns. It is the connective tissue between all of these. It is the system that ensures every function is working from the same understanding of who the customer is.

“A CDP is to customer intelligence what electricity is to appliances – a prerequisite, not a product. The value lies entirely in what you build on top of it.”

This distinction matters because many implementations falter precisely here. Organisations invest in the platform but underinvest in the capability to use it. The technology arrives; the transformation does not. A 2023 Nasscom survey of Indian enterprises found that 61% of organisations that had deployed a CDP reported being ‘in early stages’ of extracting strategic value from it, citing talent gaps and misaligned incentives as the primary barriers.

From Theory to Traction: Four Indian Enterprises Rewriting the Playbook

Across banking, retail, beauty, and consumer goods, a cohort of Indian companies has moved beyond proof-of-concept into what practitioners are calling the ‘operational phase’ of CDP maturity, where unified data is beginning to reshape strategy, not just campaign performance.

The Organisational Fault Lines CDPs Expose

Executives who have navigated a CDP implementation tend to share a consistent observation – the technology was, by some distance, the easier part. The harder work was organisational, and it exposed tensions that had long existed beneath the surface.

Data Silos Are Power Silos

In most large Indian enterprises, data silos are not technical failures. They are political ones. When the CRM is owned by sales, behavioural analytics by digital marketing, and the transactional database by finance, each team has both an incentive and an implicit mandate to protect its data territory. Integration requires not just APIs, but agreements – about ownership, accountability, and what happens when unified data tells a story that someone would prefer remained untold.

The most successful CDP implementations in India have almost universally been championed at the C-suite level. Without executive sponsorship that cuts across departmental boundaries, the platform becomes just another integration project: technically complete, strategically inert.

The Talent Gap Is Real 

India produces engineering talent at an extraordinary scale. What it still lacks, at the intersection of commerce and data, is the business-technical hybrid: professionals who can sit between a marketing team and a data engineering team, translating commercial questions into analytical frameworks and data outputs back into strategic decisions.

A 2023 Deloitte India study found that 68% of enterprises identify ‘insufficient internal analytics talent’ as a primary barrier to extracting value from data investments ahead of budget constraints and technology limitations. This gap does not close through hiring alone. It requires deliberate investment in capability building: training marketing and product teams to think in data, and training data teams to think in business outcomes.

The Patience Problem

Unlike performance marketing tools that deliver measurable results within a campaign cycle, a CDP’s value is compounding and lagging. The first quarter of unified data looks, on most dashboards, not dramatically different from the last quarter of fragmented data. The difference emerges over time as models improve, as teams build interpretive confidence, and as the understanding of the customer deepens from a snapshot into a moving picture.

In organisations where marketing leaders are measured on quarterly numbers, this creates a structural tension that has derailed many otherwise sound implementations. The business case for CDPs must therefore be made not just analytically but narratively, framing the investment as infrastructure, with the patient honesty that infrastructure demands.

“The CDP did not change our results in Q1. It changed how we make decisions. By Q3, that started showing up in the numbers.” – VP Marketing, Indian D2C unicorn, Series C

Why First-Party Data Is Now a Race

If the strategic case for CDPs was compelling before 2022, the emergence of generative AI and large language models has made it urgent. AI-driven personalisation, whether in content generation, next-best-offer modelling, churn prediction, or dynamic pricing, is only as good as the data it is trained on. Organisations with unified, consented, high-quality first-party data can build AI systems that genuinely reflect their customers. Organisations working from noisy, fragmented datasets are building AI on structured guesswork.

India’s AI-in-enterprise market is projected to grow from $6.1 billion in 2023 to over $28 billion by 2028, according to Nasscom – a near five-fold expansion in five years. The organisations positioned to capture that value disproportionately will be those who built the data foundation first.

The Generative AI Dependency

Every generative AI application in marketing – personalised content at scale, conversational commerce, predictive customer service is critically dependent on the quality and completeness of underlying customer data. A CDP does not make AI possible; poor data makes it counterproductive. India’s AI investment wave and its CDP adoption curve are not parallel trends. They are the same trend, viewed from different angles.

India’s regulatory environment reinforces this dynamic. As the DPDP Act constrains the use of third-party data, organisations that have built robust first-party data assets and the platforms to activate them will find themselves with a structural advantage that is difficult and slow for competitors to replicate.

What Indian Business Leaders Should Do Now

The strategic path forward is neither uniform nor simple. But several principles have emerged consistently from the organisations executing most effectively.

Start With the Question, Not the Platform

The most common failure mode in CDP adoption is beginning with a technology selection process. The right starting point is a set of business questions that cannot currently be answered, and working backwards to identify what data infrastructure would enable them. Technology is a means. Starting with it as an end produces platforms that are well-integrated but strategically purposeless.

Treat Consent Architecture as a Competitive Asset

In the post-DPDP world, how an organisation manages customer data consent, storage, and usage is not a legal question alone. It is a trust question. Brands that build demonstrably ethical data practices are constructing a relationship asset that compounds over time. Those who treat consent as a compliance checkbox will find the regulatory floor rises faster than their systems can adapt.

Build for India’s Edge, Not India’s Average

The temptation in any large-scale data initiative is to optimise for the median customer. In a market as diverse as India, the median customer is a statistical abstraction who describes almost no one. The real commercial value lies at the edges in the micro-segments, the regional variations, the context-specific behaviours that drive actual purchase decisions. Invest in the capability to act on granularity.

Measure Differently Or Measure the Wrong Things

If CDPs are evaluated against the same metrics as campaign tools – immediate ROAS, short-term revenue uplift, next-quarter conversion rates- they will almost always disappoint. Build a measurement framework that captures leading indicators of long-term customer value – profile completeness and enrichment rates, segment migration velocity, prediction model accuracy over time, and cross-channel engagement depth. These metrics are slower but truer.

The Shift That Cannot Be Deferred

India’s most sophisticated enterprises are no longer asking whether to invest in customer data infrastructure. They are asking how quickly they can do it and whether enough of their existing data estate can be salvaged into something coherent enough to build on.

The urgency is justified. As AI reshapes the economics of personalisation, and as privacy regulation raises the cost of third-party data dependency, the gap between organisations that control their customer understanding and those that do not will widen.

But the deepest shift is not technological. It is conceptual.

For decades, Indian marketing has been structured around campaigns planned in sprints, measured in cycles, and optimised for the immediate response. CDPs enable a different model entirely – one where the customer relationship is continuous, the data is cumulative, and the engagement is genuinely contextual rather than situationally generic.

That is the shift from campaigns to customer systems, from data collection to data intelligence, from the average to the individual. The companies that make it will not simply market better. They will compete differently.

For Indian enterprises navigating scale, diversity, and compounding competitive pressure simultaneously, that shift is no longer a strategic option. It is the terrain on which the next decade of growth will be won or lost.

SOURCES & REFERENCES

1. Gartner (2024). Magic Quadrant for Customer Data Platforms. Gartner Research.
2. RedSeer Strategy Consultants (2023). India Digital Consumer Report 2023. RedSeer.
3. IAMAI & Kantar (2023). Internet in India 2023. Internet and Mobile Association of India.
4. Salesforce (2023). State of the Connected Customer — India Edition. Salesforce Research.
5. McKinsey & Company (2023). The Next Frontier of Customer Engagement: AI-Enabled Personalization at Scale. McKinsey Digital.
6. Nasscom (2023). AI Adoption in Indian Enterprises: Barriers and Opportunities. Nasscom Research.
7. Tata Consultancy Services (2023). The Data-Driven Enterprise: Insights from 500 Indian CXOs. TCS Thought Leadership.
8. Titan Company Ltd. (2023). Annual Report 2022-23. BSE India.
9. HDFC Bank (2023). Annual Report 2022-23 — Technology & Digital Initiatives. HDFC Bank Investor Relations.
10. Reliance Retail Ventures Ltd. (2023). Annual Report 2022-23. Reliance Industries.
11. Nykaa (FSN E-Commerce Ventures Ltd.) (2023). Investor Day Presentation. Nykaa IR.
12. Zomato Ltd. (2023). Annual Report 2022-23. Zomato Investor Relations.
13. Ministry of Electronics & IT, Government of India (2023). Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023.
14. Boston Consulting Group (2023). From Mass to Micro: Personalization Imperatives in Indian Consumer Markets. BCG Henderson Institute.
15. Deloitte India (2023). The Analytics Talent Gap: Bridging the Distance Between Data and Decision. Deloitte Insights.
16. IDC India (2023). India Customer Data Platform Market Forecast, 2023-2027. IDC.

Note: Case study figures represent outcomes reported in public company filings, investor presentations, and industry research. Specific internal metrics are attributional to source documents cited. This article has been prepared for informational and strategic discussion purposes.

The post Why Indian Companies Are Betting Big on CDPs. appeared first on Fixbracket.

PRESS RELEASE

New Delhi, April 27, 2026

Crystal Crop Protection Limited (“Crystal Crop Protection”), one of India’s research-led agri-input companies, today announced the appointment of Akshay Kumar as its “Brand Ambassador”.

Akshay Kumar with Mr. Nand Kishor Aggarwal, Chairman Emeritus, Crystal Crop Protection, Mr. Ankur Aggarwal, Executive Chairman and Managing Director, Crystal Crop Protection and Mr. Sohit Satyawali, Chief Business Officer, Crystal Brands Business.

On the sidelines of this association, Crystal Crop Protection also unveiled its first national brand campaign with Akshay Kumar, “Desh Ka Kisan, Desh Ka Asli Hero”, a tribute to the contribution and everyday courage of India’s farmers. 

This association brings together Crystal Crop Protection’s three-decade long commitment to Indian agriculture with Akshay Kumar. Through this partnership, Crystal Crop Protection aims to further strengthen its connect with India’s farmers and help them adopt advanced solutions and improve farm profitability.

Ankur Aggarwal, Executive Chairman and Managing Director, Crystal Crop Protection Limited, said, “Akshay Kumar represents resilience, discipline, and a deep sense of purpose, values that strongly align with what we stand for at Crystal. This partnership is our way of connecting a national icon with the true heroes who feed the nation, our farmers. For us, the farmer is not just a stakeholder but the very reason we exist.”

The “Desh Ka Kisan, Desh Ka Asli Hero” campaign will be rolled out across television, digital platforms and various on-ground farmer engagement platforms. The campaign will celebrate farmers as the backbone of the nation while highlighting Crystal Crop Protection’s role as a partner that supports them with crop protection solutions, seeds and outsourced farm advisory teams deployed through its “Crystal Doctor” network. 

Akshay Kumar, Superstar and Brand Ambassador, Crystal Crop Protection said, “This association with Crystal Crop Protection is a natural partnership in its truest sense. To be associated with a brand that stands shoulder-to-shoulder with India’s farmers not just in words, but also in action is a proud feeling. Together, we will strive to celebrate the Indian farmer and inspire a new era of confident, modern agriculture.”

A name to reckon with in the Indian film industry, Akshay Kumar is known as a person of integrity, discipline and trust. A consistent advocate of social issues and a story-teller who connects with the pulse of the nation. He will act as the voice that amplifies the farmers’ story — acknowledging their challenges, resilience and contribution to nation building. 

Sohit Satyawali, Chief Business Officer – Crystal Brands Business, Crystal Crop Protection said, “Akshay Kumar has always brought credibility and authenticity to the silver screen, and this association will bring the same credibility to the Crystal Brand. This association will strengthen our efforts to provide advanced crop solutions and help farmers build profitable farms”.

Disclaimer

The views, opinions, and perspectives expressed in guest articles and press releases published in this magazine are solely those of the respective authors and do not reflect the official policy, position, or opinions of Fixbracket.

While we strive to provide a platform for diverse and insightful perspectives, Fixbracket does not endorse, verify, or take responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information presented in guest contributions. Any reliance placed on such content is strictly at the reader’s discretion.

Fixbracket shall not be held liable for any errors, omissions, or outcomes arising from the use of information contained in guest articles and press releases.

The post Akshay Kumar joins Crystal Crop Protection as Brand Ambassador. appeared first on Fixbracket.

It’s 9:30 PM in Mumbai.

A young founder launches a sneaker brand. Within minutes, her ads are live, not negotiated, not manually placed, but algorithmically auctioned across apps, OTT platforms, and mobile screens.

By midnight, she knows exactly which audience in Lucknow clicked, which user in Kochi converted, and which creative worked best in Hindi vs Tamil.

This is not the future of advertising in India.
This is now.

India’s AdTech ecosystem has quietly transformed from a fragmented, media-buying engine into one of the most sophisticated, data-driven marketing infrastructures in the world. With the market touching nearly $ 200 million in 2025 and continuing to grow rapidly, AdTech is no longer a support system – it is the backbone of fast-forward marketing.

And yet, beneath this scale lies a deeper shift – from volume to value, from reach to relevance, and from experimentation to execution.

Here are the top AdTech trends in India that no marketer, founder, or investor can afford to ignore.

1. The Programmatic Takeover

A few years ago, media buying in India was about relationships and negotiations. Today, it’s about algorithms.

Programmatic advertising now accounts for over 40% of digital media buying in India, fundamentally changing how campaigns are executed.

What’s driving this?

This transformation is being powered by a combination of technologies – real-time bidding that enables instant, data-driven media buying, large-scale audience segmentation that allows brands to target highly specific consumer cohorts, and AI-led optimisation that continuously refines campaigns for better performance and efficiency. Together, these forces are shifting advertising from broad outreach to precise, intelligent engagement.

Case in point:

A leading Indian fintech brand shifted 70% of its media spend to programmatic platforms. Instead of targeting “urban millennials,” it began targeting “users who checked loan eligibility twice in 48 hours.”

Conversion rates improved by over 2x – not because of higher spend, but better precision.

What it means:

Programmatic is no longer optional. It is becoming the operating system of digital advertising in India, with the market projected to reach $17.6 billion by 2033.

2. AI is Infrastructure

For years, AI sat in presentations. In 2025, it moved into production.

From generating creatives to fine-tuning bids, AI is now deeply woven into every layer of the AdTech stack – powering predictive targeting, enabling dynamic creative optimisation (DCO), and automating budget allocation to drive smarter, more efficient campaign outcomes.

The shift:

Earlier: “Let’s test 5 creatives.”
Now: “Let AI generate and optimise 500 variations in real time.”

India’s AdTech growth is heavily fuelled by AI and machine learning, enabling hyper-personalised campaigns and real-time optimisation.

Case study:

An Indian D2C beauty brand used AI-led creative testing across regional languages. Instead of one campaign, it ran 120+ micro-variants tailored to geography and language.

Result:

• 35% higher engagement
• 22% lower cost per acquisition (CPA)

3. The Rise of Connected TV (CTV)

The Indian living room has changed.

Smart TVs, OTT platforms, and cheap data have turned video into the most powerful advertising medium in the country.

Why this matters:
India may be mobile-first, but it is rapidly becoming a video-led market. As consumer behaviour shifts, brands are moving toward richer, immersive storytelling that combines sight, sound, and motion. This evolution is reflected in industry trends, where video and CTV are emerging as some of the fastest-growing segments in both the Indian and global AdTech landscape.

Case study:

A leading FMCG brand traditionally reliant on TV shifted part of its budget to OTT platforms.

Instead of broad TV reach:

• It targeted households watching cooking content
• Served region-specific ads during prime OTT hours

Result:

• Better recall
• Measurable attribution – which TV never offered

The implication:

CTV is blurring the lines between digital and traditional media – bringing performance marketing into the living room.

4. Privacy-First Advertising

For years, AdTech thrived on tracking users across the internet. That era is ending.

With global privacy regulations tightening and platforms restricting third-party cookies, India is entering a privacy-first AdTech era.

What’s taking shape:
The ecosystem is moving toward first-party data strategies, the adoption of data clean rooms, and a renewed focus on contextual targeting. At its core, the shift reflects a broader transition to consent-led frameworks and privacy-first approaches to audience targeting.

Case study:

An Indian e-commerce platform built its own first-party data ecosystem:

• Loyalty programs
• App-based engagement
• Email + WhatsApp integrations

Instead of relying on third-party cookies, it built direct relationships with users.

Outcome:

• Higher data accuracy
• Better personalization
• Reduced dependency on external platforms

5. Retail Media Networks – Where Ads Meet Commerce

If there’s one trend redefining ROI in AdTech – it’s retail media.

E-commerce platforms are no longer just selling products. They are selling advertising inventory.

Why this is gaining rapid momentum:
Ads are now being delivered much closer to the point of purchase intent, platforms are leveraging rich first-party data, and attribution has become far more transparent and measurable.

Case study:

An Indian electronics brand advertising on a major marketplace:

• Sponsored listings during search
• Display ads on product pages
• Retargeting within the platform

Result:

• Immediate visibility
• Direct sales attribution
• Measurable ROI

The macro shift:

AdTech is merging with commerce.
The funnel is collapsing – moving from awareness to purchase in a single platform.

6. Tier 2 – 4 India: The Next Billion Users

The next wave of digital growth in India is not in metros—it’s in Bharat.

Regional language content and consumption are exploding, especially across:

• Short video platforms
• OTT apps
• News and entertainment ecosystems

What this implies for AdTech:
It calls for multilingual targeting capabilities, localised creative optimisation, and messaging that is deeply rooted in regional and cultural contexts. Programmatic demand is increasingly driven by regional content consumption across Tier 2 – 4 cities.

Case study:

A fintech app launched campaigns in 6 Indian languages instead of English-only.

Outcome:

• 3x increase in installs from non-metro cities
• Lower acquisition cost due to less competition

The insight:

India isn’t a single, uniform market- it’s a mosaic of diverse micro-markets. AdTech is now empowering brands to deliver personalised experiences at scale across this complexity.

7. Measurement, Attribution & the Death of Vanity Metrics

In 2025, something fundamental changed.

The industry realized:
More impressions ≠ More value

As ad spend grew, confidence in metrics such as clicks and impressions declined.

What’s taking their place:
Marketers are shifting toward incrementality testing, Multi-Touch Attribution (MTA), attention-based metrics, and a sharper focus on ROI-driven measurement.

Case study:

A gaming company in India moved away from install-based attribution to Lifetime Value (LTV) tracking.

Instead of optimising for installs, it optimised for:

• In-app purchases
• Retention
• Engagement

Result:

• Higher profitability
• Lower churn

Finally

 The rise of full-stack AdTech ecosystems marks a fundamental shift in how brands operate; moving away from heavy reliance on walled gardens toward owning and integrating their data, media, and analytics capabilities.

This transition is driven by the need for greater transparency, cost efficiency, and control over customer data. In a maturing and increasingly competitive landscape shaped by both global giants and strong homegrown players, brands are building in-house capabilities, from CDPs to programmatic teams and analytics dashboards.

The result is faster optimisation, reduced dependency on external partners, and sharper performance outcomes. At its core, this signals a larger transformation: brands are no longer just advertisers – they are becoming media companies in their own right.

Let’s go back to that founder in Mumbai.

She didn’t just launch a campaign.

She plugged into an ecosystem that learns in real time, seamlessly adapts across languages, optimises performance across platforms, and tracks every outcome with precision. That is the power of AdTech in India today.

India’s new advertising reality – the difference between noise and impact is no longer budget. It is intelligence.

The post Inside India’s AdTech Awakening: Trends Changing Everything. appeared first on Fixbracket.

Bengaluru, April 9, 2026

In a move that brings together community participation and access to education, 93.5 Red FM in association with o9 Solutions will host ‘The Walkathon’ in Bengaluru on Sunday, May 10, 2026, from 5:30 AM onwards.

Set to take place at St. Joseph’s Indian Institution Grounds, the initiative brings together the city’s communities, corporates, students, and fitness enthusiasts around a shared purpose: to make quality education more accessible through collective action. Olympic medallist Saina Nehwal will attend the event as Chief Guest.

At the heart of this year’s initiative is a simple yet powerful idea: that individual effort, when multiplied at scale, can create meaningful change. Participants can choose to walk 3K, 5K, or 10K, but each registration and every completed walk directly contributes to improving access to education for under-served children.

Ten per cent of every ticket will support the literacy programmes, while o9 Solutions will contribute ₹500 for every finisher, ensuring that participation translates into real, on-ground learning support.

Carrying the message, “Step Forward, Give Back,” the Walkathon turns collective participation into access to AI-powered tutors through U&I’s programmes. These tutors provide personalised, one-on-one learning support, helping children build foundational reading skills at their own pace- something many do not have access to. In practical terms, every step taken at the Walkathon helps move a child closer to consistent, personalised learning support, bridging gaps that often determine whether they keep up or fall behind in school.

In the lead-up to the main event, 93.5 Red FM will also host a four-day yoga workshop across Bengaluru, with two sessions at Lalbagh and two at Cubbon Park on April 5, 7, 9, and 10. The initiative is aimed at encouraging citizens to embrace fitness and mindful living, while building momentum and awareness around the Walkathon.

Sharing his thoughts on the initiative, Mr. Siva K., Chief Operating Officer, KAL Radio Ltd., the company that operates 93.5 RED FM and Suryan FM, said, “At 93.5 Red FM, we believe that true progress is a blend of innovation and impact. ‘The Walkathon’ is a meaningful step in that direction – bringing together fitness, community, and purpose. What makes this initiative special is its ability to combine fitness with a powerful social cause. It’s inspiring to see Bengaluru come together for a cause that creates real, lasting change.”

Sharing her thoughts on the initiative, Olympic medallist and Chief Guest Saina Nehwal, whose journey has inspired millions, said, “Fitness has always been a big part of my life, and the badminton court has taught me that even the smallest step forward takes you closer to a bigger goal. On 10th May, I invite Bangalore to walk with purpose as part of the Red FM Walkathon, because every step you take will help provide underserved children access to AI-powered tutors.”

In addition to citizen participation, the initiative will also see participation from ex-servicemen, Bengaluru Police and Traffic Police personnel, as well as leading running communities.

Over the years, the Walkathon has grown into a recognised platform for community engagement, bringing together diverse groups under a shared cause. The event will follow a non-competitive format, with participants receiving RFID-timed bibs for tracking, along with finisher medals and certificates.

Registrations are currently open on BookMyShow and India Running.

Disclaimer

The views, opinions, and perspectives expressed in guest articles and press releases published in this magazine are solely those of the respective authors and do not reflect the official policy, position, or opinions of Fixbracket.

While we strive to provide a platform for diverse and insightful perspectives, Fixbracket does not endorse, verify, or take responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information presented in guest contributions. Any reliance placed on such content is strictly at the reader’s discretion.

Fixbracket shall not be held liable for any errors, omissions, or outcomes arising from the use of information contained in guest articles and press releases.

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Press Release

Bengaluru, April 2, 2026

What began as a playful April Fool’s Day campaign has culminated in a strategic brand statement. DriveX’s ‘MeetX’ campaign, initially introduced as a fictional matchmaking platform, has now been revealed as a creative lead-in to DriveX Direct, its customer-to-customer (C2C) marketplace designed to enable seamless, transparent transactions between buyers and sellers of pre-owned two-wheelers.

Launched on March 31, 2026, ‘MeetX’ was conceptualised to tap into cultural relevance and spark widespread curiosity across digital platforms. The reveal on April 2 reframes the narrative positioning of DriveX not just as a transactional platform, but as a facilitator of the right connections in a category where trust and discovery remain key friction points.

At its core, DriveX Direct builds on an already active peer-to-peer market, formalising it through a structured trust layer. The platform uses artificial intelligence and advanced technologies to enable price discovery, streamline documentation, and ensure secure processes with rigorous vehicle verification. This facilitates direct buyer-seller interactions without intermediaries, enhancing transparency and control while ensuring credible listings and a more efficient transaction experience.

Commenting on the development, Devesh Taparia, CEO, DriveX, said ‘With DriveX Direct, we are simplifying how India buys and sells pre-owned two-wheelers. ‘MeetX’ was created to spark curiosity and start conversations, but at its core, it reflects what we truly do to enable the right matches between buyers and sellers. The campaign helped us create immediate visibility, while the product delivers real value, making DriveX the right choice for trusted, direct transactions.’

By leveraging a topical moment to introduce a category-relevant solution, DriveX demonstrates a distinct brand voice while advancing its proposition beyond conventional marketplace models. The company continues to focus on building a more transparent, consumer-first ecosystem, one that empowers users to transact with confidence and positions DriveX as the right choice in the evolving pre-owned two-wheeler market.

Disclaimer

The views, opinions, and perspectives expressed in guest articles and press releases published in this magazine are solely those of the respective authors and do not reflect the official policy, position, or opinions of Fixbracket.

While we strive to provide a platform for diverse and insightful perspectives, Fixbracket does not endorse, verify, or take responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information presented in guest contributions. Any reliance placed on such content is strictly at the reader’s discretion.

Fixbracket shall not be held liable for any errors, omissions, or outcomes arising from the use of information contained in guest articles and press releases.

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Bengaluru, India, 31 March 2026

Celsius100 Consulting Private Limited, a transformational business partner to leading Indian and international brands for over two decades, has announced the appointment of Rhys Rufus as Chief Executive Officer (CEO). He takes over from company founder and current CEO, S Ghosh, who will continue as Founder and Managing Director, focusing on new business opportunities and strategic direction. Rhys will build on existing client relationships while taking charge of day-to-day operations and the company’s growth agenda.

Rhys has been an integral part of the Celsius100 journey for 16 years. He joined the firm early in its evolution and went on to build the company’s entire digital services portfolio from the ground up. Under his leadership, Celsius100 developed deep capabilities in digital marketing strategy, performance marketing and monitoring, campaign design and execution, and effectiveness measurement. His efforts have made digital services one of the company’s strongest and fastest-growing practices.

Beyond building the digital practice, Rhys has played a pivotal role in assembling and developing a top-notch team of strategic planners, creative talent and execution specialists. He has also spearheaded the company’s business development efforts, not only winning and retaining clients across India but also extending Celsius100’s footprint into the United Kingdom.

Colleagues and clients alike describe Rhys as a picture of calm composure, someone who delivers quality work even under the most challenging conditions. He is a natural team builder and a nurturing leader who invests in long-term business relationships. Clients are quick to recognise these qualities, and his thorough understanding of their businesses and consumers has earned him commanding respect across the industry.

Announcing the appointment, S Ghosh, Founder and Managing Director, Celsius100 Consulting, said: “Rhys has been the backbone of our growth story for 16 years. He built our digital services practice from scratch, assembled a brilliant team, and won the trust of clients in India and the UK. His calm temperament, his deep commitment to quality, and his ability to forge lasting partnerships make him the ideal person to lead Celsius100 into its next chapter. I could not be more confident in this transition.”

Speaking on his appointment, Rhys Rufus said: “Celsius100 has been home for the better part of my professional life  and I am deeply honoured to take on this responsibility. We have built something unique together over almost two decades, and I look forward to working with our talented team and valued clients to take the company to new heights. Our focus will remain on delivering work that truly transforms our partners’ businesses.”

A basketball enthusiast, avid motorcyclist and ardent gamer, Rhys brings the same energy, discipline and passion for solving challenges to his professional life. His elevation to CEO marks a significant milestone in Celsius100’s journey of growth and reflects the company’s commitment to rewarding long-standing leadership from within.

About Celsius100 Consulting Private Limited

Celsius100 Consulting is a brand strategy and marketing communications firm that has served as a transformational business partner to leading consumer, automotive, technology and industrial brands for over two decades. The company’s services span brand strategy, creative development, digital marketing, performance marketing, and sales capability building. With offices in India and clients across India, the United Kingdom and the USA, Celsius100 combines strategic rigour with creative excellence to help businesses grow.

Disclaimer

The views, opinions, and perspectives expressed in guest articles and press releases published in this magazine are solely those of the respective authors and do not reflect the official policy, position, or opinions of Fixbracket.

While we strive to provide a platform for diverse and insightful perspectives, Fixbracket does not endorse, verify, or take responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of any information presented in guest contributions. Any reliance placed on such content is strictly at the reader’s discretion.

Fixbracket shall not be held liable for any errors, omissions, or outcomes arising from the use of information contained in guest articles and press releases.

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At 9:17 AM on an ordinary weekday, a post goes live.

By 9:23 AM, it has 2,000 reposts.
By 10:05 AM, a hashtag has formed.
By noon, news channels are calling.
By evening, the brand’s market cap has taken a hit.

A wake-up call for modern reputation revival specialists – when a crisis doesn’t knock on the door anymore, it breaks the internet!!

In India’s hyper-socially connected landscape, where millions engage across platforms in real time, brand reputation is no longer built over decades; it’s negotiated every minute. Technology, once the amplifier of crises, is now also the only viable antidote.

As a brand under fire, how much time does it take to flip the switch?

Not long ago, crises unfolded slowly. A newspaper article. A delayed press release. A carefully crafted response.

Today? A single post can ignite a nationwide backlash within minutes. In India, where digital penetration is massive and rising, crises escalate at unprecedented speed. A report notes that social media backlash, regulatory scrutiny, and cultural sensitivities can collide and escalate ‘in minutes,’ not days.

Consider this –

Over 1,000 photos are uploaded to Instagram every second, creating an always-on narrative battlefield. A single decision or misstep can spiral into a full-blown crisis almost instantly due to the influence of online platforms.

In this environment, silence is not neutrality – it is negligence.

Lessons from the past

Kingfisher Airlines and the cost of Saying Nothing

Once India’s most glamorous airline, Kingfisher collapsed under debt. But what accelerated its downfall wasn’t just financial mismanagement – it was communication failure.

Employees went unpaid. Flights were cancelled. And the brand chose silence.

The result was total erosion of trust. A once-celebrated brand became a cautionary tale of ‘media stonewalling.’

In the absence of communication, speculation filled the void.

IndiGo’s 2025 Crisis

In 2025, IndiGo cancelled over 2,000 flights, impacting tens of thousands of passengers and triggering social media outrage.

But unlike Kingfisher, the airline responded with public apologies, crisis teams, and constant updates.

It wasn’t perfect. But it was visible.

And in today’s world, visibility is credibility.

Byju’s transparency deficit

From a $22 billion valuation to a dramatic collapse, Byju’s downfall highlighted a crucial gap – the lack of transparent communication during a crisis.

When stakeholders don’t hear from the brand, they listen to the internet.

And the internet rarely whispers.

Zomato, turning Crisis into Narrative

When Zomato faced backlash over its ‘pure veg fleet’ announcement, the response wasn’t silence; it was swift recalibration.

The company withdrew the policy, communicated openly, and reframed the narrative.

The right tinge of Tech

Today, brands are not judged for making mistakes but for how quickly they course-correct.

Modern crisis management is no longer PR-led alone. It is technology-enabled, data-driven warfare.

Here’s the stack that is quietly redefining brand reputation.

Hearing the Storm before it Hits

Imagine being able to sense a crisis before it gathers momentum – before it trends, before it spirals. That is the power of social listening. Today’s advanced platforms continuously scan millions of conversations across X, Instagram, Reddit, and online forums, picking up early signals of dissatisfaction, outrage, or concern.

In India, leading PR frameworks increasingly rely on this always-on sentiment tracking to monitor brand mentions and decode shifts in public mood in real time. The distinction it creates is critical. Instead of reactive PR that scrambles to respond after outrage erupts, brands can move toward proactive reputation management, addressing issues while they are still contained.

In a market as culturally nuanced and emotionally diverse as India, where even minor missteps can trigger disproportionate backlash, this early-warning capability is not just useful; it is indispensable.

 Reading Emotion at Scale

It’s no longer enough to simply track what people are saying about a brand; understanding how they feel is where the real insight lies.

AI-driven sentiment analysis tools make this possible by classifying conversations into positive, negative, or neutral tones, while also detecting subtle emotional shifts such as spikes in anger, sarcasm, or distrust. They go a step further by identifying the influencers and voices shaping these narratives, allowing brands to focus their response where it matters most. In doing so, crisis management evolves from instinct and guesswork into a more precise, data-driven discipline grounded in real-time intelligence.

A modern PR team doesn’t ask, ‘Is this bad?’
They ask, ‘How bad, and where is it spreading?’

Automated Response Systems

When thousands are posting simultaneously, manual responses quickly become unsustainable. This is where automation steps in to restore order and efficiency. Chatbots handle first-level queries instantly, while pre-approved response templates ensure consistent communication across channels. At the same time, clearly defined escalation protocols route more complex or sensitive issues to human teams for intervention.

The result is a system where no customer feels ignored, and no message contradicts another. In moments of crisis, this consistency becomes critical because while it builds trust, even a hint of chaos can erode it just as quickly.

Fighting Misinformation

Fake news has become the invisible accelerant of modern brand crises, intensifying situations far beyond their original scale. From bot-driven review attacks to rapidly spreading misinformation, the threats brands face today are often engineered rather than organic.

In response, reputation management firms are turning to sophisticated solutions such as bot detection systems, review authenticity algorithms, and collaborations with fact-checking networks to separate signal from noise. There have been instances where coordinated waves of fake reviews have caused ratings to plummet, only to later be traced back to organised bot activity.

In this evolving landscape, the battle is no longer just about managing perception-it’s about defending the very notion of truth.

Controlling the Narrative

Not all voices carry the same weight in shaping a brand’s narrative. Some amplify conversations, while others have the power to neutralise them. Technology enables brands to identify key opinion leaders, track micro-influencers who are driving discussions, and pinpoint communities where sentiment is beginning to shift.

With this intelligence, brands can engage far more strategically, stepping in to correct misinformation, provide clarity, and rebuild trust where it matters most. In a market like India, where influencer culture is deeply embedded in digital behaviour, this capability becomes an especially powerful lever in managing reputation.

Looking Ahead

Agentic AI and Autonomous Crisis Management

We are stepping into a new era where AI no longer merely assists but actively takes charge. Imagine intelligent agents that can detect subtle anomalies in brand sentiment before they escalate, systems that simulate potential crisis scenarios to prepare responses in advance, and automated narrative engines that craft real-time communication with precision and speed.

This is not a distant vision of the future; it is already unfolding. As these capabilities mature, crisis management will become increasingly predictive by anticipating issues before they surface, responding instantly without human lag, and hyper-personalised, tailoring communication at scale to resonate with diverse audiences.

Reputation in Real-Time

A brand today is no longer defined by what it says about itself, but by what the internet is saying about it in any given moment. In this always-on reality, crisis management is no longer a siloed function – it is an ongoing capability.

Technology, too, has evolved beyond being a mere tool; it has become the first responder, stepping in at the very onset of a potential crisis.

Because when the next post goes live, and it inevitably will – the real question is not whether a crisis will occur, but whether your brand will be prepared to respond before the world begins to take notice.

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