Ad Campaigns
Play ‘Game of Roads’ on CEAT
MUMBAI: CEAT was always a brand that reflected road insights in its communication. That coupled with the core brand promise of safety got us thinking on the current brief. While the ‘idiots’ campaign reflected common road behaviour, this rendition aims to focus more on the person who makes every rider / driver’s worst nightmare come true – be it the guy who runs and stops ahead of your bike without any warning, or the one who thinks his hand can stop any vehicle with just a gesture. The space is potent enough for multiple personality renditions as India is full of such people. In portraying them, we aim to also educate on road sense.
In the new TVC, “In the Game of Roads, CEAT Helps”, the concept of “Be Idiot Safe” campaign was evolved to the next level. TVC shows a jaywalker sprint through traffic, forcing the vehicle to brake instantaneously. This creates a ripple effect as everyone stops what they are doing busy staring at the jaywalker anticipating a collision—all in freeze frame. Amidst the chaos, a motorcyclist screeches to a halt gaining attention of the crowd causing a series of mishaps in the background; however, the motorist and the jaywalker remain to be safe with the help of CEAT Superior Grip Tyre.
CEAT Limited ED-Operations Arnab Banerjee said, “CEAT’s purpose is to make mobility safer and smarter every day, and the chaos caused by jaywalkers creates the context for delivering the message that CEAT is the safest bet on Indian roads. As a brand we have been evolving our association and brand communication related to safety which was prevalent in the past Idiot safe and Tubeless campaigns. We wish to fortify and strengthen our market share in both the two wheeler and four wheeler segments and the TVC campaign is aligned to these objectives.
CEAT Tyres VP marketing Nitish Bajaj, “The TVC campaign revolves around communicating CEAT as a safe brand in the two wheeler segment. The brand communication for CEAT is geared towards safety on Indian roads and you will see the same across our other product categories as well. The campaign is well aligned with our objective to have a long-lasting association with safety. Going forward, we wish to achieve a strong brand equity linked to safety along with realising our business goals.”
Ogilvy Advertising ECD Kiran Anthony said, “The most heart wrenching moment for any rider or driver on the road is a pedestrian in front of his vehicle. While the pedestrian is cool, calm and composed with the knowledge that his antics will save him from accidents. Fact is, antics didn’t. The tyres did. And that’s what we tried to highlight in the commercials. When the world around reacts to the pedestrians foolishness, all he does is sheepishly grin and walk away, thanks to CEAT tyres.”
NATIONAL: Amazon Ads has laid out a sharply tech-led vision for the advertising industry in 2026, arguing that artificial intelligence, streaming TV and creator partnerships will combine to turn brand building into a more precise, performance-driven business.
At the heart of the shift, the company says, is the fusion of AI with Amazon’s vast trove of shopping, browsing and streaming signals, allowing advertisers to move beyond blunt reach metrics to campaigns designed around real customer behaviour.
“The future of advertising is not about reaching more people, but the right people with messages that resonate,” said Amazon Ads India head and vice president Girish Prabhu. “By combining AI with deep customer insights, we help brands move from broadcasting campaigns to having meaningful conversations wherever audiences spend their time.”
One of the biggest changes, according to Amazon Ads, will be the collapse of the wall between media planning and creative development. Retail media, powered by first-party data, is increasingly shaping everything from brand discovery to final purchase, pushing marketers to design campaigns around audience insight rather than internal instinct.
AI is also moving from a support tool to a creative engine. Agentic AI, which automates and accelerates production, is expected to make high-quality creative accessible even to small businesses, compressing weeks of work into hours and giving challengers the ability to compete with larger brands on speed and scale.
Behind the scenes, AI-driven analytics will take on a bigger role in campaign optimisation, identifying patterns, spotting opportunities and recommending actions that would previously have required teams of analysts.
Streaming TV is another big battleground. With India’s video streaming audience now above 600 million and connected TV users at 129.2 million in 2025, advertisers are set to treat streaming not just as a branding channel but as a performance engine, measured increasingly by sales, sign-ups and bookings rather than just reach.
Finally, Amazon Ads sees creators and contextual advertising reshaping how brands tell stories. Creators will act less like influencers and more like long-term partners, while scene-aware ads on streaming platforms will allow brands to insert hyper-relevant offers into the flow of what viewers are watching.
Taken together, Amazon Ads argues, these shifts mark a move towards advertising that is both more human and more measurable, where AI handles the complexity, and creativity does the persuading.
