Ad Campaigns
upGrad’s first TVC to feature Vicky Kaushal
MUMBAI: upGrad, India’s leading online education venture focused on building careers of working professionals, unveiled its first ad-campaign. Featuring actor Vicky Kaushal, the film introduces consumers to upGrad and brings the brand idea alive. The film breaks the myth of online education being ineffective by showcasing how impactful the online education space is today and how it is as good as traditional offline education.
The second part of the TVC campaign is based on the insight that the Indian working professionals are in a state of inertia where they feel that they do not need to go back to learning once they have a job. These films are set to make the customers realize that to remain relevant in today’s day and time, one has no choice but to learn and upskill.
The campaign sheds light upon upGrad’s unique online power learning approach to learners and demonstrates the influence of upGrad and the role it can play in the learner’s life by giving them the opportunity to transform their careers. It further intends to establish the fact that in this fast changing world of technology, there’s a massive demand for new age skills at the workplace and you need to upskill yourself for a better career.
Created by Lowe Lintas, the ad campaign showcases upGrad as a brand which plays an important role in learner’s life by acting as an engine of transformation which gives them the ability to put their careers on a high growth trajectory.
Announcing the launch of the new ad-campaign, Mr. Ronnie Screwvala & Mr. Mayank Kumar, co-founders, upGrad said, “Through this campaign we are trying to create awareness on how upGrad can help learners prepare for the future of work and help them thrive in their career. Online education for professionals is still at a nascent stage in India and to create awareness at a category level, we felt the necessity of a commercial that will change the consumer mindset and is relatable. Our association with Vicky Kaushal and the new TVC will help us increase our reach & create deeper connect across geographies”.
Sagar Kapoor, Chief Creative Officer, Lowe Lintas added, “It was an excellent briefing session by the founders that led our creative thinking at upGrad. The vibe was positive and the brief actually spoke about what upGrad can do to lives rather than just what upGrad is and how continuous learning can make sure one keeps navigating his or her career forward. Inspiring stories of how lakhs have already done this successfully spurred us further. All that said the team believed in keeping the message and tone of the communication sprightly and involving. Hence the idea of “life ko karo lift”!
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.
