Brands
Voltas Beko turns factory into immersive ‘Factory of Happiness’
Brand invites creators inside to build deeper, experience-led engagement
MUMBAI: Voltas Beko is stepping beyond traditional marketing playbooks, turning its manufacturing unit into an immersive brand experience with its ‘Factory of Happiness’ initiative.
At a time when attention spans are shrinking, the brand is betting on participation over promotion. Instead of a typical campaign, it invited a curated set of creators, including Kamya Jani, along with tech influencers, Gen Z voices and trade partners, to its Sanand facility in Ahmedabad for a behind-the-scenes look at how its products come to life.
The factory was reimagined as an interactive space, offering visitors a closer view of the people, processes and decisions shaping the brand. The focus was less on product display and more on how design and engineering contribute to everyday comfort and convenience.
Originally rooted as an internal philosophy, ‘Factory of Happiness’ has now evolved into a broader platform that reflects the brand’s emphasis on care, consistency and long-term thinking. The initiative was conceptualised and executed with Barcode Entertainment, which brought its creator-first storytelling approach to the on-ground experience.
“At a time when the world is increasingly dealing with loneliness, anxiety, and emotional fatigue, the idea of happiness has never been more relevant,” said Barcode Entertainment director, growth Ajay Kulkarni. “What stood out for us with Voltas Beko was that this wasn’t a manufactured campaign, but an authentic internal belief. ‘Factory of Happiness’ gave us the opportunity to shape that philosophy into something people could truly experience.”
Adding to this, Barcode Entertainment group head, influencer marketing Sonia Nahar said, “Influencer marketing today is shifting from storytelling to story living. For us, this was about making people feel the brand, not just see it. When creators are part of the experience, their storytelling becomes more honest and relatable.”
Looking ahead, Voltas Beko plans to extend the idea beyond the factory floor. The company will roll out ‘Happiness Corners’ at select retail outlets and introduce ‘Happiness Ambassadors’ across its service network to enhance customer interactions. The campaign also includes in-store kiosks, interactive demos and a sustainability initiative called Plant Parents, where saplings are planted in the names of employees’ children.
By opening its doors and inviting consumers in, Voltas Beko is showing that in a crowded market, experience may well be the new advertisement.
Brands
YES Bank appoints S Anantharaman as chief risk officer
Former Jio Financial Services group chief risk officer takes charge of enterprise-wide risk at the embattled private lender
MUMBAI: YES Bank is not taking chances with risk anymore. The private lender has appointed S Anantharaman as its chief risk officer, a hire that signals the bank’s continued effort to rebuild credibility and tighten the controls that once famously slipped.
Anantharaman arrives from Jio Financial Services, where he served as group chief risk officer and built a risk management architecture spanning lending, payments, insurance broking and asset management from the ground up. Before that, he held the chief risk officer role at Bank of Baroda and senior leadership positions at HDFC Bank and L&T Finance Holdings. Three decades in banking and financial services, in other words, with scars and qualifications to match. He is a chartered accountant and a CFA charterholder.
At YES Bank, his brief is considerable. Anantharaman will oversee the bank’s entire enterprise-wide risk framework, covering credit policy, market risk, operational risk, information security, data governance, analytics, model governance and data privacy. It is, in short, every lever that matters when a bank is trying to prove it has grown up.
YES Bank’s turbulent past needs little rehearsing. What it needs now is exactly what Anantharaman has spent thirty years building: the kind of risk culture that stops problems before they become headlines. The appointment suggests the bank knows it.
