MAM
ixigo rolls out new campaign with Jackie Shroff & Suniel Shetty
Mumbai: ixigo has roped in Bollywood celebrities Jackie Shroff and Suniel Shetty as the new faces of the brand for their campaign “#NikalLo.” The campaign has been designed to create buzz and increase brand awareness ahead of the festive season and will be launched across television and digital platforms.
The television commercials feature Jackie Shroff and Suniel Shetty engaged in interesting banter, which reflects the close bond they share in real life. One of the videos features Jackie Dada struggling to pronounce the brand name ‘ixigo’ in true bhidu style, with Suniel Shetty correcting him. The ads encourage the audience to travel and end with the catchphrase “ixigo travel app download karo, bindaas ticket book karo, aur nikal lo!”
The brand decided to team up with Jackie Shroff and Suniel Shetty as the actors enjoy mass appeal with a wide fan base spread across metros as well as tier 2 and 3 cities across India.
Speaking on their collaboration with ixigo, Jackie Shroff and Suniel Shetty said, “We are excited to team up with ixigo for this campaign. We’ve been wanting to come together for a project for a while now, and ixigo seemed to be the perfect fit! We really resonate with the company’s resilience and growth journey. The trust and friendship that we share amongst one another is synonymous with the faith that travellers have in ixigo! We love how easy it is to book flights, train or bus tickets on ixigo. Their apps offer travellers lots of convenience and flexibility, with a wide array of features on board. Being avid travellers ourselves, we look forward to this collaboration!”
Talking about this campaign, ixigo co-founder & group CEO Aloke Bajpai and co-founder & group CPTO Rajnish Kumar said, “We are pleased to announce our association with two legendary stars like Jackie Shroff and Suniel Shetty for our brand campaign. We have grown up watching these Bollywood icons and their passion, commitment to work and resilience resonates with our brand ethos. Travel is back with a bang this year and our aim with this campaign is to maximise awareness around ixigo ahead of the festive season. Ixigo is a unique brand name and was actually generated using an algorithm. For years, we have seen users trying to pronounce ‘ixigo’ with some interesting variations, and that was our inspiration behind the first video.”
MAM
VML India lands two finalist spots at Cairns Hatchlings 2026
The Mumbai agency is back in Australia with two teams, a UN brief and 24 hours to impress
MUMBAI: VML India is heading to Australia again. The Mumbai-based creative agency has secured two finalist spots at the Cairns Hatchlings 2026 competition, one in the Audio category and one in Design, making it the only Indian agency to have reached the finals in both editions of the contest since its launch in 2025.
Four people will make the trip. Senior copywriter Shilpi Dey and senior art director Raj Thakkar will compete in Audio. Art directors Shabbir and Shruti Negi will go head-to-head with the world’s best in Design. The finals take place at the Cairns Convention Centre from 13th May, culminating in an awards ceremony on 15th May.
The work that got them there is worth examining. For the Audio category, Dey and Thakkar tackled a brief for LIVE LIKE MMAD with a campaign called Inner Voice, Interrupted. Using spatial audio techniques, the campaign recreates the overwhelming self-doubt that descends after a long workday, physically panning negative thoughts left and right before cutting the noise entirely to reveal a confident inner voice. Strategically targeted at commuters via Spotify during evening rush hours, the campaign reframes the hours after work as an opportunity for personal growth and charitable action.
For the Design category, Shabbir and Negi worked on a brief for Canteen’s Bandanna Day, a campaign highlighting how cancer pushes teenagers out of their own defining moments. Using a pixelated design language to create stark contrast between a blurred world of isolation and a focused world of connection, the campaign, titled The Flipside of Cancer, shows teenagers fading into the background of birthdays, skateparks and school proms. As a Canteen bandanna appears, the blur flips and the teenager snaps back into sharp focus.
Kalpesh Patankar, group chief creative officer of VML India, made no attempt to disguise his satisfaction. “We are immensely proud to see our teams consistently excel on the Cairns Hatchlings platform since its inception,” he said. “They have masterfully tackled challenging briefs across diverse categories, demonstrating both layered storytelling and a unique creative approach. This exceptional teamwork is truly inspiring.”
Dey and Thakkar, returning to the finals after last year’s run, were candid about the demands of the audio medium. “It’s one of the most demanding mediums, where we only have a few seconds to capture a listener’s world with sound alone, so absolute clarity is essential,” they said. “The true measure of creative work is its ability to create positive change, and our audio submission was made to help those who need it most while encouraging people to silence the inner voices that hold them back.”
Shabbir and Negi, competing in Design for the first time, described the experience as “a completely different beast.” “We see it as an opportunity to showcase our expertise, raise the bar, and challenge ourselves in new ways, while also learning from creative minds from across the globe,” they said.
In Australia, the four finalists will face a live 24-hour brief from the United Nations before presenting in a live pitch session. Twenty-four hours, one brief, one shot. VML India has been here before. It knows exactly what is at stake.
