Also in this letter:
■ Superficial trolling not constructive, says ASCI, as AU Bank ad faces flak
■ HC directs K’taka govt to hold talks with Uber, Ola on auto fare issue
■ Infosys Q2 results: net profit jumps 11% YoY to Rs 6,021 crore
Brand strategists and lawyers have seen a surge in the number of requests to review content as the boycotting of films and brands gains traction on social media.
Everything’s taboo: Brands are categorically asking creatives and marketers to steer clear of religion, politics or anything that has the potential to offend.
This week, AU Small Finance Bank faced backlash online for an advertisement that featured actors Aamir Khan and Kiara Advani. The ad, which depicts the groom (Khan) taking the first step into the house of the bride (Advani), mocked Hindu traditions, some netizens said.
Earlier, Khan’s film Laal Singh Chaddha had also faced boycott calls online. Akshay Kumar-starrer Raksha Bandhan and Ranbir Kapoor-Alia Bhatt’s Brahmastra, too, have faced the heat from irate netizens.
Playing it safe: Brand strategists are now working on promotional and trailer-level edits exploring various current trending topics on the internet to assess what could go in favour of the movie or ad campaign.
“When we review content, we make clients aware of trends in the past about the actor, actress, content or what the general online chatter has been – whether it has been positive, negative or neutral – through our proprietary tool,” said Mitesh Kothari, cofounder of the brand and digital agency White Rivers Media.
“With brands, we try to play the middle ground and not do anything that could offend,” said Rutu Mody Kamdar, founder and managing director of Jigsaw Brand Consultants.
“Everyone is now going to play it safe – unless you’re a brand with a personality that is rebellious,” she said.
Advertising Standards Council of India chief executive Manisha Kapoor said trolling of ads and brands on “superficial grounds is not constructive”, days after an ad by AU Small Finance Bank received flak, and calls to boycott the brand went viral.
Kapoor hinted that the ad in question does not violate the industry self-regulatory body’s code. “ASCI’s code for advertising states that ads must not cause grave and widespread offence. Unless an ad crosses that line, we don’t believe it violates our code,” she told us on Thursday.
Controversy: The ad shows actors Aamir Khan and Kiara Advani as newlyweds and the groom entering the house first, which many social media users, including some state-level ministers such as Madhya Pradesh home minister Narottam Mishra, alleged is “contrary to Hindu tradition”.
While Khan can be heard speaking about bringing change to the usual way of doing things, the ad has been trolled by social media users many of whom said “a new bride is supposed to enter the home first”, leading to calls to boycott the Jaipur-based small financial bank.
Hypersensitive: “People may have personal differences with ads and they are free to voice their opinions, but any collective trolling on superficial grounds is not constructive,” Kapoor said. “Courts have also held that they would consider content from the point of view of an average citizen, not a hypersensitive one,” she added.
AU Small Finance Bank, in an email revert, said it was “never its intention to hurt sentiments”.
The Karnataka High Court on Thursday asked the state government to hold another round of talks with the app-based auto-ride hailing providers such as Uber and Ola to try reach an understanding on fares of auto rides booked on their apps.
Uber and Ola moved the court to challenge the state transport department’s notice asking them to stop accepting auto-rides on their apps at once.
Both companies have a licence issued under Karnataka On-Demand Transportation Technology Aggregators Rules, 2016.
Arguments: The government maintained before the court that the licence allows them to offer only taxi services in a motor cab having a maximum six-member passenger seating capacity, excluding the driver, and that it does not include autos.
The ride-hailing firms contested this, saying the aggregator rules very much covered autos as well.
“We argued that the law clearly says vehicles that can carry up to six passengers can be aggregated…that can mean auto as well and not just cars,” said an executive from one of the aggregators.
Also Read: Proposed EV hub in Bengaluru will house 1000 startups, says IT/BT Minister
Infosys on Thursday reported a 23.4% year-on-year (YoY) jump in consolidated revenue to Rs 36,538 crore in the September quarter. Net profit rose 11% to Rs 6,021 crore.
Both the topline and bottomline were above expectations in an ET Now poll, which pegged them at Rs 36,520 crore and Rs 5,860 crore, respectively.
Buyback, dividend: The board also approved buyback of shares worth Rs 9,300 crore at Rs 1,850 each, and announced an interim dividend of Rs 16.50 a share.
Attrition falls: Infosys also saw attrition levels drop during the quarter. The attrition rate came in at 27.1%, down from 28.4% in Q1.
No to moonlighting: CEO Salil Parekh weighed in on the moonlighting controversy, saying Infosys did not support dual employment. Over the past few months, most IT services companies have taken a tough stance against moonlighting, and Wipro has sacked 300 employees found to be working for competitors.
Mindtree results: Mindtree also announced its Q2 results on Thursday. The company reported a 31.5% YoY rise in consolidated revenue for the September quarter to Rs 3,400 crore. Net profit increased 27.5% to Rs 509 crore.
TWEET OF THE DAY
ETtech Done Deals
WeWork India has made its first investment in the Bengaluru-based conferencing and collaboration platform Zoapi, an enterprise software-as-a-solution company that combines the four basic needs of a meeting room – wireless screen sharing, video conferencing, online calendar, and room scheduler.
Career tech startup Board Infinity said on Thursday it has acquired CXO career platform Leadup Universe, which creates learning programs and career pathways for CXOs, for an undisclosed sum. Following the deal, the entire team of Leadup Universe, including its cofounders and investors, will join Board Infinity.
Singapore-based crypto investment startup Pillow has raised $18 million (Rs 148 crore) in Series A funding co-led by Accel, Quona Capital, Elevation Capital, and Jump Capital.
ET Ecommerce Index
We’ve launched three indices – ET Ecommerce, ET Ecommerce Profitable, and ET Ecommerce Non-Profitable – to track the performance of recently listed tech firms. Here’s how they’ve fared so far.
Other Top Stories By Our Reporters
Indian startup funding hits two-year low in Q3 CY22, says PwC report: Startup funding in India in Q3 CY22 hit a two-year low at $ 2.7 billion across 205 deals, mirroring the global slowdown in funding, as per the PwC India report titled, “Startup Deals Tracker-Q3 CY22.” While a decline in funding was registered across all stages of investment – early, growth and late – the decline has been the least in early-stage deals.
Infosys onboards 40,000 freshers during H1FY23: Infosys said it had onboarded close to 40,000 freshers in the first six months of fiscal 2023 of the 50,000 it had said it would hire during the current fiscal. The net increase in headcount at the end of the September quarter stood at 10,032.
Frontrow sacks 75% of workforce: A day after Byju’s said it would lay off about 5% of its 50,000 employees to achieve profitability this fiscal year, another online education startup has followed suit. FrontRow, which is focused on non-academic learning, has sacked 130 employees – almost 75% of its workforce – across marketing, sales, engineering, and product.
Global Picks We Are Reading
■ The regulators of Facebook, Google and Amazon also invest in the companies’ stocks (WSJ)
■ Meta’s VR headset harvests personal data right off your face (Wired)
■ Apple looks even more like a bank now that it’s adding a savings account to Apple Card (The Verge)
