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Cleartrip/Flipkart aping Zomato-style advertising? Looks rather forced 😏

Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

The EC-protest equivalent of women's safety protest slogan, 'Ek Kachori, Do Samosa... In Mardon Ka Kya Bharosa?', in very Bengaluru lingo: 'One Idli, Two Dosa... Gyanu Did Off Full Mosa' 😂

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

McDonald's is already famous for brand partnerships (most known for movie partnerships which lands as toys in Happy Meals), but I'd still be surprised to see an ad for Bajaj Finance when I'm looking at their menu inside a store and wondering what to order 😅

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive" —C.S. Lewis.

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

"Ironically, both Airtel and Jio have signed pacts with SpaceX to offer Star- link broadband services in India" 🤷‍♂️

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 09/10/2026

Is Economic Times afraid to point out that it is India's home minister who is indulging in "blatant overreach and misuse of state power" considering Delhi Police reports to him? Does "misuse of state power" come under "Ram Rajya" that the ruling party loves to invoke relentlessly?

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 08/10/2026

A textbook case of how a leadership vacuum in communications directly fuels frontline PR disasters. The crisis management crisis feeds itself.

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Are we to assume that Mana has no plans to expand beyond Bengaluru (definitely not Pune and Mumbai), while Mantra (Mana with a 'tr') has no plans to expand to Bengaluru?

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

India: "Yes, government schools needs fixing, but why is CJP doing this? They're anti-BJP. Also, do they have police permission to protest?" France: "This is unacceptable. Why isn't the government fixing it?" (People, collectively, against the government, like India once was, pre-2014)

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

3/3 Not only does a 5 Star bar come in a similarly golden-yellow pack, but the brand has spent years owning the territory of "Do Nothing". So imagine 5 Star simply plastering life-sized images of its bars all over Metro coaches. No headline. No copy. No CTA. Because… they’re doing nothing. 😁

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

2/3 Any chocolate bar brand could have done this. But David did it first (and, as far as I know, only David). When I saw this, my first thought was: "Whoa. This is a golden idea waiting for Cadbury 5 Star"!!

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Back in January, protein brand David ran an outdoor campaign across MTA trains in New York where the agency Day Job simply printed actual-size images of David protein bars. No caption. No headline. No selling. Nothing. Just life-sized pictures of the bars, set against a stark white background. 1/3

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

"Who roped in TCS? Where are the minutes that record the decision? Who can add, and delete, names from the voters’ list? How did six IAS officers, including the three election commissioners, allow an outsider, TCS, to become central to the electoral machinery?"

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Interesting juxtaposition! On one hand, Modi talks about democratizing technology and making it accessible. On the other, his government is removing an open-source technology that enables citizens to communicate even when the internet is shut down.

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

What are the chances... two brands named Neo/Niyo advertise on the front pages of Mint today :)

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 07/10/2026

Who joined Gen-Z protests in India?

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

What an interesting contrast between these two front-page ads in TOI Chennai today, with the brands being distinguished only by an 'E' (SBI vs. SEBI)! SBI frames its key points in Tamil, that too in Tamil script, while SEBI uses English script to write Hindi words for an audience in Chennai!

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Interesting to see the multi-pronged denial that there was no disturbance due to demand for jobs even as a prominent placard indicated that it was about jobs. Whether it was angry or "enthusiastic" is unclear but they did disrupt FM's speech and CBN had to placate/lecture them to be silent.

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Both news on the same page, depicting the state of Amritkaal in India.

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

"The wins tilt in the TVK’s favour as deletions increase. In the 22 constituencies where the deletions were between 50,000 and 80,000 voters, the party won 18. It also won all the 10 constituencies with more than 80,000 deletions".

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 06/10/2026

Ever read an FSSAI recall notice and wondered, "Wait... should I throw out everything in my kitchen or just one specific package?" —Good intent, bad PR, unnecessary public panic: tinyurl.com/fssaipanic

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Idea: BJP could now conduct a live, in-video Agni Pariksha at Ayodhya Ram Mandir where Surya Kant Ji and Gyanesh Ji would take turns to swear on the reigning deity with their 'truths' on Form 6 changes and approval. Milk's milk and water's water would happen automatically.

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

Wow, this is quite something! Imagine a hypothetical Indian equivalent - Zomato, known for its in-house creative team, taking on external, non-Zomato (and non-competing, of course) clients!!

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

4/4 The look on the mothers' faces says it all... they seem to be thinking, 'We *have* brought up these boys well!' beyond simply what one of them utters.

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

3/4 The 2nd instance is a delightful leap of faith, and that the brand thought it was appropriate to bring that up, in a world where Nike, in its 'Winning isn't for everyone' ad campaign proclaims, 'I want to take what’s yours and never give it back. What’s mine is mine and what’s yours is mine'!

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

2/4 The first instance, as I had mentioned, is adequately predictable. This has been done many times by Surf Excel already - one kid doing something helpful (or noble, as their festive ads for Ramzan or Holi demonstrate) to another person.

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

There's a delightful twist in Surf Excel's latest variant of their long-running 'Daag achhe hain' and that happens AFTER what you expect (predictably) does happen. It's the second instance that demonstrates really sharp and thoughtful writing by the agency TBWA\Lintas! 1/4

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

How dare the airline operators committee seek such evidence from Adani group-run Mumbai Airport? It's time the AOC be deemed both anti-national and anti-Hindu (and perhaps anti-constitutional too) or something along those lines, as per standard toolkit.

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

In the front page of New York Times, today!

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

SIR, conceived by BJP and orchestrated by Gyanesh, is the MOST elaborate and treacherous scheme perpetrated by BJP on unsuspecting Indians on a scale hitherto unparalleled. That all of us just complied like bleating sheep is the biggest joke, on all of us.

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Just like Pradhan, BJP will cut its losses by dumping Gyanesh before the SC comes down on it. And the party that unleashed this monstrous illegality (along with SC looking the other way) will get away with it by offering 'Jai Shri Ram'. Don't let it get away - BJP needs to pay very dearly.

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Milliblog Weeklies, week 313 tinyurl.com/OCT04-2026 Raja magic again in Dorothy, my other picks from Sai Abhyankkar's Baththa, good new singles from Ajay-Atul, Hesham, lovely new pop singles by Monali Thakur, Sanjeeta Bhattacharya & Raag Sethi, Sai Vignesh and more.

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Brilliant!! Worth asking again: Is there a single ruling party leader in any state who has admitted her/his children to a government school as a matter of pride/principles?

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

"Seeing how prophetic TN CM 2026 number turned out to be (for Vijay), Thol Thirumavalavan, leader of the VCK, has been in a video-shoot in a car with a TN 07 CM 2031 number plate. Now NTK leader Seeman has applied for the number TN 08 CM 2031" 🙂

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

LOTS of "mysteriously" happening in the Tata imbroglio, it looks like. Someone should "follow the money" and find out the "parties" (ya brokers) who stand to gain the most.

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

"BJP has downplayed the gravity of The Indian Express investigations, as a “normal part of institutional deliberation leading to unanimous decisions”. The history of past differences between EC members suggests otherwise"

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

"The answer to unsafe public spaces cannot be that women should avoid parks after dark, return home earlier, travel only with companions, or otherwise organise their lives around the possibility of male violence"

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

"Spiritual leader" is an unusually selective description of Gandhi!

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Long overdue. But why is this not in the agenda of 'major pharmaceutical companies, nonprofits, governments, or capitalists'?

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Hahahahahaha 😂 This is a terrific parody of the Gartner Magic Quadrant, while also taking a broader swipe at the consulting industry’s love of 2×2 matrices!

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The state of India today: The Home Minister declares praise for Modi from a warmonger targeting civilians as a matter of pride for Indians, on Gandhi's birth anniversary 🙄

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

The electoral roll “clean-up” has a rather curious feature: 13.4 crore voters are deleted first, and told to prove they belong later. Election (C)o(m)mission is now restoring some of them... an implicit admission that when the gatekeeper gets the process wrong, it’s the voter who pays for it.

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

"Kiska BaaS is the best?" 🤭

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

"The bank did not explain why it chose the words “have been revised” when I had never sought a loan in the first place"

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Karthik @beastoftraal.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

It takes just one person to shake a supposedly mighty, arrogant, ruthless and rigged system.

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