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Weekend Unwind with: Social Panga’s Sunitha Natrajan
Mumbai: With another weekend upon us, it is time to unwind with the latest Q&A edition of Indiantelevision.com’s Weekend Unwind—a series of informal chats that peek into the minds of business executives through a fun lens in an attempt to get to know the person behind the title a little better.
In this week’s session, we have Social Panga director – digital strategy Sunitha Natrajan.
Without further ado, here it goes…
Your mantra for life
Embracing the philosophy of detached attachment. I believe in the idea of finding joy in the journey without clinging to outcomes. Letting go allows for genuine freedom and inner peace, navigating life with resilience and a light heart.
A book you are currently reading/plan to read
Haven’t yet started my reading list for the year, but one book that’s on my radar is “The ART of Influence: Persuading Others Begins with you” by Chris Widener.
Your fitness mantra, especially during the pandemic
I have been following Hara hachi bu – in Japanese, it means “eat until you are 80 per cent full. I have been an under-eater all my life and this mindful way of eating has ensured I balance my portions, veggie, and fruit intake and has had a direct impact on my health, immunity, and happy state of mind overall.
Your comfort food
Home-cooked sambhar, rice, and veggies with papadam.
When the chips are down a quote/ philosophy that keeps you going
Everything is ethereal before it becomes material.
The fact that we can imagine it means that we get a shot at it. So, we have to hold the vision. And a vision is held not in thoughts but in action.
Your guilty pleasure
Watching documentaries of all kinds
A Life lesson you learnt the hard way
No amount of I don’t have the time to do this, or priority basis situation is a valid excuse or reason for something to not happen. Where there is a will there is always a way.
What gets you excited about life?
Balance. Even in the most chaotic moments, finding balance and the journey to it is always rewarding and makes me more than excited, and grateful for life.
What’s on top of your bucket list?
For 2024, traveling to places like Lakshwadeep via cruise is one on top and most realistically achievable 😀
If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?
Fail and fail fast, don’t let overthinking get the better of you. There is more to life if you pace it right with all kinds of experiences 🙂
One thing you would most like to change about the world
There are loads to change, but on a generic note I would love the world to embrace more empathy on an everyday level. We may not have solutions for everything, but empathy goes a long way.
An activity that keeps you motivated/charged during tough times
Weirdly it has been board game sessions with my friends and colleagues.
What lifts your spirits when life gets you down?
A lot of me time and self-reflection along with good music
Your go-to stress buster
Spending quality time with animals, pets, family, and friends.
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.
