Mumbai, June 8 -- It's 2014. Mobile phones are slowly becoming common in rural India. India's biggest fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) company latches on to this wave. It launches Kan Khajura Tesan (loosely translated from Hindi to 'earworm station'), a service where a missed call gave you free radio featuring music, news, jokes and Bollywood updates, along with some ads for brands like Lux and Lifebuoy.

The campaign, launched by Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL), was India's first free and on-demand entertainment mobile radio station. It took rural India by storm, reaching 33 million people, according to news reports at the time. It went on to win awards, including one from the World Advertising Research Centre. Priya Nair, then vice presid...