Ad Campaigns
Zomato serves up a motivational feast with Fuel Your Hustle campaign
MUMBAI: Food delivery and experiences company Zomato has dished out a high-octane, monochrome television commercial, “Fuel Your Hustle”, drawing comparisons to Nike’s iconic “Just Do It” ethos. The star-studded TVC features Hindi cinema’s Shah Rukh Khan, cricketing ace Jasprit Bumrah, boxing legend Mary Kom, and musical maestro AR Rahman, all united in a quest to uncover the “secret ingredient” of greatness.
The film is tied together by a compelling music track from Kalmi (Nikhil Kalimireddy), best known for his hit “Big Dawgs”. The background score features a dynamic blend of Indian and western sounds, characterised by a prominent use of percussion and drums that amplify the motivational fervour.
The advert kicks off with an intriguing question: “What’s their secret ingredient? Their secret sauce for greatness? What do they know that others don’t?”. What follows is a compelling visual narrative of each icon’s relentless dedication to their craft. Khan is seen meticulously re-taking scenes, Rahman passionately wrestling with his keyboards to perfect a tune, Kom relentlessly skipping and sparring in the boxing ring, and Bumrah unleashing thunderous deliveries that send stumps cartwheeling.
A montage of candid shots interspersed with their rigorous routines is accompanied by a haunting voiceover. It declares, “They know the taste of sweat. The salt of tears. They wake up when it’s dark. They show up when it’s hard. They know what it takes, retakes, mistakes. The truth is they are just like you and me. There’s no secret recipe. They JUST WANT IT MORE. THE SECRET INGREDIENT IS HUSTLE. FUEL YOUR HUSTLE. Zomato.”
The TVC, with its powerful personalities, stirring message, and driving soundtrack, undoubtedly commands attention. It not only positions Zomato as a brand that embodies its own “hustle,” but also aims to inspire the common person to fuel their ambitions. This ad suggests that Zomato is hungry for more, and wants its customers to feel the same zest for life.
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.
