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AFAA confers ‘Honorary Life Member’ status on Ramesh Narayan
Mumbai: The executive committee of the Asian Federation of Advertising Associations has unanimously decided to confer the Honorary Life Member Award on industry doyen Ramesh Narayan.
Reacting to the announcement Narayan said, ” I accept this recognition with humility. I am grateful to all those who helped me serve the industry in various capacities all these years. Most importantly I am blessed to have been able to build strong relationships around the world due to these industry associations”.
AFAA chairman Srinivasan Swamy said, “This honour is but a small token of appreciation for the tireless work Narayan has put in for 23 years to build AFAA as a strong industry body across Asia. He has been the go-to person for anything that required thinking. Ramesh is known for his integrity, truthfulness and his ability to communicate effectively on anything that is given to him. And he has a unique way of making friends and influencing people”.
The nomination of Narayan describes him as a person who has selflessly served AFAA and shaped many strategies that have held AFAA in good stead as a relevant industry body.
It also describes his role in other associations like the International Advertising Association where as the area director APAC he endeared himself to all the chapters in the region. He is also credited with conceiving the widely acclaimed Olive Crown Awards.
In 2021 Narayan was inducted into the AFAA Hall of Fame. He has also been honoured with the AFAA Special Merit Award at the AdAsia Bali.
He has been inducted into the IAA India Chapter Hall of Fame, has been recognised as a global champion by the IAA at its Inspire Awards in London, and is the recipient of the IAA Honorary Membership Compass Award.
He was a part of a three-person Supreme Court-nominated committee to monitor government advertising in India.
He always believes that what is good, is good for business and is a strong advocate of using communication as a force for good.
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.
