Ad Campaigns
Ad:tech Honours recognises trailblazers in marketing technology
MUMBAI: The marketing industry is undergoing a major transformation, driven by rapid technological advancements. Recognising this evolution, ad:tech New Delhi introduced the inaugural ad:tech Honours, an awards initiative celebrating innovation and excellence in marketing technology.
The prestigious event, held on 6 March at Yashobhoomi, New Delhi, in partnership with the International Advertising Association (IAA) India Chapter, brought together key industry figures to honour those shaping the future of tech-driven marketing.
For over 14 years, ad:tech New Delhi has been a key forum for digital transformation discussions. With the launch of ad:tech Honours, it now acknowledges pioneers revolutionising brand engagement, customer experience, and business growth through cutting-edge technology. This collaboration with the IAA India Chapter adds further credibility, ensuring the awards set an industry benchmark for recognising technological excellence in marketing.
Ad:tech India country managing director Jaswant Singh, “Technology is no longer just a tool it is the driving force behind modern marketing. These awards recognise the visionaries shaping the future of our industry,” he stated, expressing hope that the ad:tech Honours would inspire further innovation and higher industry standards in the years ahead.
The Salt Inc. CEO & founder and IAA Mancom Member, Neena Dasgupta, “We have always celebrated campaigns, creativity, and talent, but now it’s time to honour the platforms and technologies that make it all possible.”
IAA India Chapter president Abhishek Karnani, “We are proud to partner with ad:tech for these awards, recognising innovation in advertising and marketing. Congratulations to the winners, and heartfelt thanks to our supporters, jury, and the dedicated ad:tech team.”
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.
