Ad Campaigns
Sudhanshu Rai launches new campaign
Mumbai: A story is told eye to eye, mind to mind and heart to heart. Legend has it that the whole sphere of stories and storytelling has an ingrained element of vulnerability and honesty, with undeterred engagement of mind and imagination. It was humanity’s need to share knowledge within communities for better survival prospects that apparently led to the evolution of stories, and transgressing beyond time, stories became an intrinsic part of cultures around the globe. But are stories as much a part of our life, as it was until a few years or decades ago? When did we let this beautiful and inherent part of our life go amiss amid the hustles? When did we stop bonding with our loved ones, and even strangers through stories that continue to appeal universally?
It’s about time we took a pause, and vow to bring this fascinating form of timeless tradition back into our lives, our homes, our communities and the society as a whole. India’s favourite storyteller Kahanikaar Sudhanshu Rai is slated to shortly launch #BondWithStories, a meaningful pan-India campaign that intends to touch millions of lives across all age groups. The campaign intends to bust the myth that stories are a medium solely for children and assert that people across all ages can benefit immensely from this ancient art. Four stories appealing to different human emotions would be released as part of the campaign, which would essentially be a nationwide drive sustained over 60 days.
Conceptualised by storyteller-filmmaker-actor Sudhanshu Rai, the #BondWithStories campaign’s objective is to create awareness about how stories can play a pivotal role in enhancing one’s holistic personality, irrespective of whether it’s a child or a grownup individual. The sporadically discussed prowess of storytelling with regard to evolved imagination, mental growth, creativity, holistic personality building, consciousness and personal bonding is likely to constitute the core of this campaign, which would seek participation from people across demography. It would further stress the need to make storytelling practice in homes, schools as well as corporate circles to foster a positive culture.
With more than 200 stories and standing as one of India’s few live storytellers, Sudhanshu Rai has been using the power of sound to augment the experience of stories for listeners/audiences. His live storytelling shows for instance are replete with orchestrated effects of sound, which is believed to have created our whole universe and still remains a significant tool that can enhance our holistic mental health to make living better. The #BondWithStories Campaign aligns with his vision to propagate a panoramic perspective of storytelling. This comes just days after Sudhanshu Rai declared that his next as an actor-filmmaker is a Bollywood sci-fi thriller, which for the first time brings such genre to India’s Heartland.
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.
