India, April 11 -- It's curious the way brands have started pairing up these days. You look away for a moment and find that things which once belonged to completely different worlds are now sharing the same sentence. Formula 1, long associated with speed, science, and swagger, now has KitKat on the side of its cars.

It makes you stop and think. Not in a dramatic way, but in that quiet, head-tilting sort of way. Why would a chocolate bar want to be seen on a racing machine? And why now? At first, it feels like a random branding experiment. But when you pull back and look at the broader pattern, something else begins to take shape. These aren't isolated gestures. There's a method behind the surprise.

What we're seeing is a kind of courtsh...