Ad Campaigns
Ogilvy Bangalore drives UberAuto to Chennai with ‘No haggling, No Hassles’
MUMBAI: Ridesharing company Uber has launched its latest campaign ‘No Haggling, No Hassles’, encouraging people to avail UberAuto services in Chennai. The campaign has been conceptualised by Ogilvy Bangalore.
Ogilvy vice chairman India and chief creative officer South and Southeast Asia Sonal Dabral added, “UberAuto has brought a dramatic change to the way our audience uses auto rickshaws by bringing them never before convenience and peace of mind. It’s therefore fitting that we are introducing this epic service to our audience with an epic story full of humour, drama and suspense. I’m sure that our audience will enjoy this campaign as much as we enjoyed creating it.”
Uber head of brand – rides, India and South Asia Saakshi Verma Menon commented, “Uber’s vision is to build globally and live locally. UberAuto takes away the daily hassles of hailing an auto by harnessing the power of technology. This campaign aims to connect with our communities, driver-partners and riders in Chennai. Ogilvy South has been a great partner in bringing this creative idea to life in Chennai."
Ogilvy South president Ram Moorthi said, The flavour of the relationship between an auto rickshaw and it’s rider is a uniquely local one. From Ogilvy’s South office, we’ve used a South Indian flavour to help UberAuto convey its hassle-free message to its customers. Full credit to our client partners for going with our audience understanding while keeping us honest in terms of the Uber brand’s values.”
The campaign shows the name of the protagonist (witness), ‘Selvam’ echoed around the city dramatically. As unique characters ranging from policemen to politicians scream Selvam’s name in anticipation, we finally see Selvam haggling with a regular rickshaw driver for his ride. As the Voice Over resolves Selvam’s conflict by introducing him to UberAuto, we see him happily arriving at the court much to the relief of everyone. The film ends with the most relieved of them all, the accused who is thankful that his witness has arrived on time.
As part of the campaign, Uber is also set to release print, outdoor, and radio ads with the same message.
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.
