Ad Campaigns
Infectious Advertising onboards Shabbir Motiwala
Mumbai: Infectious Advertising has roped in Shabbir Motiwala as head of production. Prior to taking on this new role, he was an independent producer and won the Cannes Lions Grand Prix in 2022 for the Killer Pack campaign.
Motiwala started his career in advertising as an Assistant Director at UTV in 1993. Later he was appointed as an agency producer at Ambience Advertising; he then became a director and directed more than 50 commercials. Afterwards, Motiwala was appointed the head of production at BBH India, working with talented creatives from across the globe, including the great Hegarty to eventually settling into the role of an executive producer.
Over the years, Motiwala has worked with reputed brands such as Honda, Coca-Cola, Panasonic, Nissan, Toyota, Unilever, P&G, Reckitt, ICICI, Colgate Palmolive, Google, Castrol, and many others. He has earned multiple awards at Cannes Lions, and The White Pencil at the D&AD as a producer.
Commenting on his new role, Motiwala said, “As an agency producer, I was familiar with the leadership team at Infectious even before they started their own company. When they approached me about the head of production role, I was thrilled. I appreciate their transparent ethos that focuses on craft and their single-minded vision of setting up an in-house production team.”
“As the head of production, I am committed to bringing in talented individuals who excel in film production and digital technology. It is important to me to create an environment where the team feels supported in taking risks and trying out newer things, pushing the boundaries of creativity and innovation. By working with specialists, we can add value to our productions and continue to grow in this ever-evolving industry,” Motiwala concluded.
Commenting on the appointment, Infectious Advertising CEO & managing partner Nisha Singhania and creative chairman & managing partner Ramanuj Shastry said, “By 2024, videos will make up more than 74 per cent of all mobile internet traffic. Facebook users watch 8 billion videos per day. Enough said. Video is king. And no matter how meticulously drawn out your content strategy, you are only as good as your producer. Well, we lucked out a bit! Motiwala joined us with immediate effect. With three decades of invaluable and hands-on experience, Motiwala brings an X-Factor to ‘Infectious content’ that is sure to delight our existing and future clientele. Khushamdeed, Shabbir!”
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.
