Ad Campaigns
“It was friends & food that made Crash the IPL possible”: Nikita Deshpande
MUMBAI: The challenge was to seize the opportunity and uncork the creative genius in you. Nikita Deshpande, a budding film-maker from Mumbai, has done just that and has emerged as the first winner of Crash the Pepsi IPL campaign.
Her film titled ‘Served’ beat over 400 films that were submitted by consumers from all over the country to become the first winner in the campaign. Deshpande’s film went on air on 12 April, 2015 as the official Pepsi television commercial during the match between Chennai Super Kings and Sunrisers Hyderabad. Deshpande was awarded a cash prize of Rs 100,000 and has won seats for herself and her friends in the esteemed Pepsi VIP box for the match in Chennai.
Speaking to Indiantelevision.com Deshpande says, “It was in March when we sat and decided: let’s go for it. We had a nice and long brainstorming session amongst 12 of us and we came with the idea. The video was shot with Canon 5d Mark II and was edited by Prashant Ramachadran, who was also associated with Badlapur. The entire group was from the film fraternity and that helped a smooth execution. Quality VFX and sound engineering was also exhibited, which made the production quality allusive. The total expenditure of the film was close to Rs 3500 only. We may make a few more ads for the same campaign and in future also I aspire to make more ad films for different brands. I also have dreams of making a feature film… it’s always Dil Mange More.”
Ranbir Kapoor had earlier said, “Crash the Pepsi IPL is a first-of-its-kind campaign in India, and I am excited to team up with Pepsi in judging the entries for this creative challenge! Crash the Pepsi IPL will give people a chance to really uncork their creativity and leave a mark. It’s awesome that Pepsi has put consumers at the forefront of something as big as the Pepsi IPL – it’s a really bold move and I would expect nothing less from Pepsi!”
Congratulating the winner, PepsiCo India senior director marketing – social beverages Ruchira Jaitly said, “The ad film by Nikita Deshpande has hit the bull’s eye with the messaging. The film brilliantly portrays Pepsi as the perfect food accompaniment by weaving in a delectable trail of signature cuisines from the host cities of Pepsi IPL. The connection between cricket, food and fun-times with friends and Pepsi can’t be missed in the ad. We congratulate Nikita on being the first consumer to crash the Pepsi IPL. We look forward to many more such films over the next few weeks. Nikita is exactly the kind of talent we were looking for, as she displays a true reflection of Pepsi’s philosophy of seizing the moment now.”
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.
