Ad Campaigns
Apollo & WATConsult launch #EarnTheJersey
MUMBAI: Apollo Tyres along with WATConsult, a leading and most awarded digital and social media agency, part of Dentsu Aegis Network, recently launched a digital campaign called “#EarnTheJersey”, as part of their association with Manchester United.
Based on the motto, “A Manchester United Jersey is always ‘earned’ and never ‘given’, this initiative is part of the overarching umbrella of #ApolloXmanUtd, for the Indian market.
Along with creating brand awareness about the association amongst the Indian soccer & Manchester United fans, the key objective of the campaign is to also leverage the partnership with one of the biggest football brands to maintain the interest of Apollo Tyres consumers.
#EarnTheJersey is a trial by which a fan can truly ‘earn’ its Manchester United Jersey by ‘Going the Distance’ and proving that they deserve it. The users are supposed to download the augmented reality (AR) app from Google play or iOS store and scan the Apollo Tyres logo to start collecting virtual Manchester United jerseys. The one who collects the maximum jerseys stands a chance to watch a live match or win a signed Manchester United Jersey.
The first season of the campaign is till August.
Speaking on the same, Rajiv Dingra, Founder and CEO, WATConsult, said, “Through this campaign we wanted to build upon the football craze in India among the Manchester United fans by giving them a chance to truly earn their jerseys. We chose to go down the digital route by creating AR apps considering our young, tech savvy audience.”
Pramesh Arya – Group Head Marketing (APMEA), Apollo Tyres Ltd. said, “We have created a strong digital presence for Apollo Tyres in the recent past. Leveraging our association with Manchester United and the power of AR technology, we want to create exciting experiences and rewards for our consumers. With this campaign, we want to graduate from search and display based awareness campaigns to creation of a brand engagement property that drives brand differentiation and loyalty.”
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.
