Reliance announces the launch of ‘The Nod’—a digital lifestyle publication

On the morning of 13^th May, 2024, The Nod went live, with Alia Bhatt as cover star. The Nod is a digital lifestyle publication from The Right Side, the creative arm of Reliance Industries Limited, helmed by Priya Tanna, the former editor-in-chief of Vogue India. ‘The Right Side’ is a vertical under Isha M Ambani.

With Megha Mahindru and Ridhima Sapre as co-editors, The Nod is a highly curated online destination that aims to become an authority in culture commentary, through short, incisive pieces as well as long, insightful reads. The differentiator is its 3Cs proposition: Current, Crisp, and Clever. Current stands for everything you need to know to be in the know. Crisp, as the word suggests, is about being succinct in the what, the where, and the why. Meanwhile, Clever refers to unique voices and angles for smart storytelling. The logo, a version of which has the 3Cs, animates to a sonic signature that everyone will come to associate with the platform.

The Nod aims to give the time-strapped reader content that they can consume on-the-go. It aims to sharpen viewpoints, and help readers stay up to speed with the biggest talking points of our times. Capturing what readers want today, The Nod will spotlight interests as varied as fashion, beauty, pop culture, work life, design and sustainability to build its authority on cultural commentary.

With a team of journalists (editors, writers, photographers, stylists), who have worked at titles ranging from Vogue India, Elle India, Hindustan Times, Architectural Digest, Conde Nast Traveller, Rolling Stone India, The Print and more, The Nod will cover a wide gamut of genres with the aim of exploring all the essential reads around modern living for the time-crunched.

Speaking about the publication, Priya Tanna, President – The Right Side, says, “After working in print media for three decades (at newspapers and magazines), I knew the time was right for a new digital platform. With The Nod, we wanted to create a space where even our readers find a space to escape the digital clutter we all encounter on our feeds every day. There’s so much info, endless content to watch and so much to read that our tabs are always open, but we never get to it. So The Nod in that sense is focused on simplifying the modern world around us.”

Megha Mahindru elaborates on her editorial vision, “When we started planning The Nod, we wanted to fill in a gap that was evident in the publishing world. Our starting point was to take features and culture reporting away from its lip-gloss and bubblegum image, and introduce our readers (through our articles, videos and shoots), to new perspectives and engaging conversations, while covering what’s important today.”

The publication features Alia Bhatt seen through the eyes of her mother, Soni Razdan Bhatt, and Ridhima Sapre explains why they took this route: “With an actor who has been in the media spotlight as much as Alia Bhatt—we know everything from her cat’s name to her favourite cake—it was important to uncover something new. How do we delve into the private lives of such public figures, who already have hundreds of thousands of articles online dedicated to them? That’s the challenge that we’ve set for ourselves with all our content.”

Priya Tanna:

Priya Tanna heads The Right Side (TRS) – Reliance Industries Limited’s’ in-house creative agency formed in 2022. TRS has handled and worked very closely on launches like the NMACC and The Jio World Plaza, along with the existing Reliance Retail verticals. TRS is now launching its own IPs, and the first of which is The Nod, a digital publication.

Priya comes with 30 years of experience in Media and Journalism and prior to this, she was the launch Editor-In-Chief of Vogue India, and the launch Editor of DNA’s After-Hours. She has also worked with Afternoon Dispatch Courier at the Bennett & Coleman Group.

Megha Mahindru

The former Features Director at Vogue India, Megha has contributed to a vast scroll of publications such as Rolling Stones India, Hindustan Times, Time Out Mumbai among others over the past two decades as a journalist.

Megha believes that the core of a good publication is to be useful to its readers and as the Editor of The Nod, she hopes the website will be the place where readers learn about things for the first time. Whether it’s a new brand or a new forward-thinking idea. Like news, Megha believes that fashion and lifestyle reporting is all about capturing the times we live in, and she hopes The Nod will become this online authority in cultural commentary through its definitive features about modern living.

Ridhima Sapre

The former Digital Editor at Vogue India, her work spans across the lifestyle magazine space with past experiences at ELLE India and Femina. During her time helming digital for Vogue India, the website ranked #2 (website traffic) among all Vogue international editions. She was also a member of the Vogue International Network Editors team—a central hub for audience insight-sharing and content collaboration—which included members from 20+ wholly-owned and licensee markets across the world.

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