Ad Campaigns
MATCH. MAGGI. MASALA campaign spices up cricket with Smriti Mandhana
Mumbai: As the cricket fever heats up with the excitement of supporting different teams, there is one thing that dials up the thrill even further – the irresistible taste of MAGGI noodles. MAGGI has yet again stepped up to the crease as the ultimate team player, fostering moments of friendship and camaraderie with its latest campaign ‘MATCH. MAGGI. MASALA’, featuring the dynamic cricket icon Smriti Mandhana.
Talking about the roll-out of the campaign Nestlé India director Rajat Jain said “Our campaign Match. MAGGI. Masala. highlights the shared joy of indulging in an irresistible bowl of MAGGI despite supporting different teams, making the match even more masaledaar. We are proud to onboard the champion herself, Smriti Mandhana who now as a viewer cannot resist a bowl of MAGGI. We believe that the campaign will heighten the spirit of cricket by bringing ultimate delight to the consumers.”
Talking about her association with the campaign, Smriti Mandhana said, “MAGGI is my first love and I am ecstatic to be associated with the brand which brings together the two most precious things for me. The thought is true to what I feel even when I watch the match with my friends and is truly a Match. MAGGI. Masala.”
The campaign comprises a digital film & social media activation. The film focuses on the love for MAGGI through its irresistible taste even in situations when friends have different teams to support.
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.
