Jewellery brand GIVA on Saturday clarified why it withdrew its Rakshabandhan advertisement featuring actor Kriti Sanon, saying the decision was driven by concerns over the safety of its on-ground employees and stores rather than a change in its position on the campaign's message.
Addressing the controversy on Instagram, GIVA founder Ishendra Agarwal said that there had been a perception that the company had backed away from the campaign and its message following the backlash.
Agarwal said the brand's belief in the campaign's intent "remains unchanged". According to him, the advertisement was created in collaboration with Sanon and was intended to celebrate Raksha Bandhan as a festival that brings families together.
The episode puts the spotlight not just on the advertising controversy but also on the business Agarwal has built since entering the jewellery market in 2019.
Agarwal entered the jewellery business after identifying a shift in how Indians could buy and wear jewellery. His thesis was that jewellery would increasingly be treated as an everyday accessory rather than purely an investment, Moneycontrol reported.
That idea led to GIVA, a Bengaluru-based fine jewellery brand co-founded by Agarwal, Nikita Prasad and Sachin Shetty.
The company started with an investment of ₹10 lakh. Its latest valuation, according to Tracxn data cited in the information shared, stands at about ₹4,924.55 crore as of July 28, 2026.
Daily orders jumped from around one to nearly 250 in a single day, forcing the founders to pack orders through the day and night. The company soon ran out of inventory.
GIVA entered a market where established online jewellery brands were already present. Agarwal believed there was room for a more affordable proposition.
Gold, he said, was expensive, making higher-value jewellery purchases more difficult to sell online. The company therefore focused on silver jewellery, positioning it as a premium yet relatively accessible offering.
The founder said the decision to remove the advertisement was taken quickly after the situation around some of GIVA's stores escalated as the company remained a loss-making entity.
"Incidents creating an unsafe environment for our on-ground teams" prompted the company to act, Agarwal said, adding that the safety of employees and stores was the brand's first responsibility.
The clarification provides a business rationale for the withdrawal, coming after GIVA had earlier said on August 26 that it was removing the advertisement "out of respect".
In its earlier statement, the company said it respected Indian culture, traditions and festivals and that the campaign was intended to celebrate Rakshabandhan with families and pets.
GIVA added that if the advertisement had inadvertently hurt the sentiments of some sections of society, that was not its intention.
