Ad Campaigns
Babil Khan’s comedic moment with mother shines in Glance’s #YehSmartHaiBoss campaign
Mumbai: Glance, one of the world’s leading Smart Lock Screen platforms, has teamed up with new-age Bollywood actor Babil Khan for their latest #YehSmartHaiBoss campaign. The campaign is geared towards encouraging the adoption of Glance Smart Lock Screen, a platform that has already garnered a substantial user base of over 200 million monthly active users in India.
The collaboration between Glance and Babil Khan addresses the issue of information overload in a light-hearted manner, showcasing a solution that frees users from the exhausting cycle of searching for information, downloading multiple apps, and constantly unlocking their smartphones. In the videos, Babil Khan and his mother, Sutapa Sikdar playfully highlights the Glance Smart Lock Screen as an intelligent platform that caters to all generations and enhances the user experience by providing everything directly on the lock screen, eliminating any need for tedious searches and clicks.
In the viral video, Babil humorously teases his mother about their respective generations’ tech savviness, playfully asserting that the Glance Smart Lock Screen is the smartest of them all. His mother counters with her own witty remarks, showcasing the features of the Glance Smart Lock Screen. The video, which was first shared on social media by Viral Bhayani has received an overwhelming response, amassing thousands of views, likes, and comments within hours.
As a popular figure among the new generation of Bollywood stars, Babil Khan perfectly embodies the spirit of the #YehSmartHaiBoss campaign. He charmingly portrays a tech-savvy Gen Z individual who appreciates the smart features and benefits offered by the Glance Smart Lock Screen. Along with his mother, he shares the enthusiasm for Glance’s features, including personalized content, news & sports updates, gaming, and shopping, all accessible without having to unlock the smartphone.
Commenting on the campaign, actor Babil Khan said, “I must say #YehSmartHaiBoss campaign with Glance was my first collaboration with my mother and indeed a very memorable experience. Generational gaps are a fun thing in every family, but Glance is a platform that can bind families over common interests and shared passions. It’s been exciting exploring Glance’s smart features, and I can’t wait for everyone to experience this convenience on their lock screens.”
Sutapa Sikdar said, “It seems like yesterday when I taught him words and today, he stands eight inches taller than me and working professionally together. Can I have words to describe this feeling? Like I would not have words to describe how easy and special Glance was, though we agreed to disagree on the point that my generation was smarter!! While we both agreed glance helped me to stay updated and it is super easy!”
Glance chief marketing officer Bikash Chowdhury said, “We are delighted to have Babil Khan on board for our #YehSmartHaiBoss campaign. His relatability and charm resonate with our audience, making him the perfect choice for this campaign. At Glance, we strive to enhance user experience by providing relevant content right on the lock screen, eliminating the need for constant searching and unlocking. We believe that this campaign, coupled with Babil and his mother’s humorous banter, will further our mission of simplifying technology for users across all generations.”
Glance comes as a pre-installed feature on leading Android smartphone brands. In India alone, over 200 million users spend more than 25 minutes daily on their Glance-enabled Smart Lock Screens, engaging with personalised content spanning over 15 categories including entertainment, music, sports, and many more. Catering to a diverse consumer base, Glance is available in seven languages – English, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali, and Kannada.
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.
