Ad Campaigns
Aashirvaad Masala turns up the star power with Nani and a selfie-led AI campaign
MUMBAI: What do you get when you mix a pinch of masala, a selfie, and Telugu cinema’s Natural Star Nani? Aashirvaad Masala’s blockbuster new AI-powered campaign that’s turning fans into reel-life co-stars—one WhatsApp message at a time.
Following the successful onboarding of Nani as brand ambassador in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, ITC has launched a first-of-its-kind digital experience that lets users create personalised movie posters featuring themselves alongside the Tollywood icon. All it takes is a scan of a QR code on Aashirvaad’s chilli powder pack—or a click from the brand’s Telugu social handles—to get started.
The campaign plays off the tagline ‘Dammu Meede, Star Meere’, spotlighting homemakers as the real heroes of the kitchen. Now, with genres ranging from romance and action to comedy and thriller, the brand invites them to bring that same flair to their very own cinematic moment.
Built on a slick AI-driven WhatsApp bot, the experience allows users to select language, genre, and character before uploading a selfie—and voilà, their custom poster is ready to roll. Lucky participants even stand a chance to see themselves on billboards with Nani or win movie tickets.
Blending spice with stardust, Aashirvaad Masala’s campaign taps into Telugu audiences’ twin passions—food and film—while pushing the envelope on tech-led engagement. In short, this isn’t just seasoning; it’s star-making with a side of dum.
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.
