Ad Campaigns
Vicks launches #TouchOfCare campaign
MUMBAI: Vicks, a brand synonymous with care globally, has launched a heartwarming new campaign ‘Touch of Care’. It reasserts the importance of care while challenging and seeking to redefine what family is in contemporary society. The campaign leads with the idea that ‘Family is where Care is’ portraying the real life story of an orphan and her newfound ‘mother’.
Created by Publicis Singapore, the story is told in the first person by the orphaned girl Gayatri herself. The film beautifully captures how Gauri cared for Gayatri as her own, against all odds, with deep compassion and love. The story reflects the challenges that Gauri faces from the rest of society, as a transgender woman.
The Vicks Brand has stood for Family Care in India for over 50 years. However, family today is not always as tightly defined as it once was. With the changing face of life across India and an increasing number of people living away from their traditional environments –the idea of family now goes far beyond just biological connections or sharing a surname. Vicks has therefore adopted this bold and progressive stance- that above all else, it is care that is the ultimate definition of what a family is.
According to P&G CEO Nitin Darbari: “Vicks has always been about the gentle touch of a mother’s care, as she caresses and gives relief to her child. With the #TouchOfCare campaign we are going a step further and expounding the importance of care beyond just the traditional perception of family. The campaign shows how people who, though not connected by blood, end up being family through care itself”.
Publicis Singapore CCO – global clients Ajay Thrivikraman commented “Looking for a way to express this powerful idea was both a heartening and humbling experience, once we realized that stories of extraordinary care are all around us in real life, and we are honoured that Gauri and Gayatri gave us an opportunity to share their story of care with the world.”
Publicis Communications APAC chief strategy officer Ed Booty said: “Great brands don’t just reflect safe and accepted norms, instead they dare to set agendas in culture at large. That is our ambition with this work for Vicks – to give the timeless idea of Family Care a fresh and contemporary meaning.”
Film director Neeraj Ghaywan said: “It was an immensely gratifying and inspiring experience to put together Gauri and Gayatri’s story. #TouchOfCare questions our conventional understanding of a mother and what constitutes a family.”
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.
