Brands
Balaji Wafers taps Creativefuel for social media push
MUMBAI: Balaji Wafers is turning up the volume online. The homegrown FMCG major has appointed Creativefuel as its social and digital partner, signalling a clear intent to make social media a main course rather than a side dish.
The year-long partnership comes as more legacy consumer brands rethink their digital playbooks, moving beyond campaign-led bursts to always-on storytelling. For Balaji Wafers, the goal is simple but ambitious: build a strong, consistent digital presence that feels as familiar as its wafers, yet fresh enough for today’s scrolling generation.
Under the mandate, Creativefuel will handle the brand’s social media strategy, content creation, digital storytelling and community-led engagement across platforms. The focus will be on audience-first narratives that respect Balaji’s decades-old consumer connect while speaking the language of contemporary internet culture.
The appointment reflects a wider shift in the FMCG sector, where social media is no longer just a support act for big campaigns but a primary brand-building stage. For brands like Balaji, with deep roots in regional and national markets, this means finding new ways to stay relevant without losing their core identity.
Creativefuel’s experience in building scalable, always-on digital ecosystems for large consumer brands played a key role in securing the mandate. Its strength lies in blending platform-native content with a sharp understanding of audience behaviour, a combination Balaji sees as critical for 2026.
Commenting on the partnership, Balaji Wafers marketing lead Sandeep Roy, said the brand has always prioritised staying close to consumers while evolving with the times. He noted that Creativefuel’s grasp of digital culture and audience insights made it a natural fit as Balaji steps up its social presence.
Creativefuel COO Tiya Wadhwani, said the mandate underscores the agency’s growing role as a long-term digital partner for legacy FMCG brands. She added that Balaji Wafers’ strong consumer connect offers a rich foundation for building a relatable and consistent social presence.
The win further strengthens Creativefuel’s FMCG portfolio and reinforces its focus on content-led, community-driven brand building. As Balaji Wafers looks to turn likes into loyalty, its latest move suggests that in 2026, even the most familiar snacks are ready to speak fluent social.
Brands
Creative Intelligence: Using AI to Predict Which Ads Will Actually Convert
Priyanka Aeron, Director & Co-founder of Thrive Global AI
MUMBAI: In a heavily populated digital landscape, simply being creative with your advertising will not guarantee that your ad will be successful. In fact, brands today are producing more content than ever. However, very little of that results in actual engagement or sales. However, Creative Intelligence, powered by AI, is fundamentally transforming the advertising industry.
Creative Intelligence utilizes data, machine learning, and statistical behavioral insights to analyze and predict how well a creative asset will perform prior to it being published. Therefore, marketers no longer have to rely on either their gut instincts or post-campaign analytics for making informed decisions before production. That said, AI-powered creative intelligence greatly improves results and decreases wasted dollars spent.
Moving Beyond Guesswork
In the past, making ads was a mix of gut feeling, experience, and A/B testing. These methods were useful, but reactive by nature. People have already spent their budgets by the time the results are looked at. AI models can find patterns that are linked to higher engagement and conversion rates by looking at huge datasets. These datasets can include things like past campaign performance, audience behavior, and visual elements like color, composition, and facial expressions. This helps marketers guess which ads will do well even before they go live.
Decoding What Truly Drives Conversions
AI-powered creative intelligence allows for an evaluation of advertisements that is not limited to the basic data but also explores the elements of an effective advertisement through subtle reactions; clarity and directness of the ad message and how well the ad captures audience’s attention in the first three seconds. AI can also provide insights into the successful use of advertisements directed to human faces, which connect through eye contact based on media channels, and how advertisements that utilize shorter but clear calls to action may produce more clicks from certain populations. The insights, provided through AI, provide marketers with the ability to think beyond creating more advertising material and additionally create more effective ad campaigns that actually convert.
Personalization at Scale
Consumers expect relevance more than ever. Irrelevant mass messaging is not going to work in a society inundated with information. Hyper-personalization, using AI, allows companies to create content that suits individual segments within their target markets based on their demographics, interests, and behaviors. Rather than having one single message that aims to reach everyone, brands can have many versions of their messages tailored to each segment within the market. Such flexibility is what makes campaigns successful nowadays.
Faster Iteration, Better Results
Another advantage to using AI in creative decision-making is speed. Companies must improvise because their campaign cycles are shorter than ever before, and having the ability to iterate rapidly is more important than it has ever been. There is no greater way to do this work than through AI, as new technologies give brands the ability to test multiple creative avenues and figure out which ones are working well. This reduces a lot of the testing that companies would otherwise have to do and makes the process faster.
With AI, brands can also make creative changes in real-time during a campaign, allowing the, to make vital decisions and adjust their creatives, rather than waiting out. This allows for faster adaptability, well-tested campaigns and reduced lost ad spend.
The Human-AI Collaboration
Even though AI is capable of performing certain tasks, its purpose is not to eliminate human creativity. Successful campaigns require human collaboration with computer intellect since both complement each other. While computers are capable of dealing with massive amounts of information, discovering patterns, and providing predictions, humans are the one to inject stories and emotions into campaigns.
The Future of Advertising
As the complexity of advertising becomes harder with the passage of time, Creative Intelligence will play a significant role in helping marketers formulate a strategic approach. The yardstick that will set standards for determining whether a marketing firm has fulfilled its responsibilities will be the forecasting of future outcomes, as well as personalized content and optimization of creative elements in real-time. In contrast to the existing scenario where the campaigns remain fixed, these campaigns will be capable of adjusting themselves according to the customer interacting with the brand, as well as other trends on social media channels. This will enable brands to offer customers an engaging experience that will exceed expectations. The biggest hurdle marketers will face will be finding ways to utilize these capabilities without compromising branding and enhancing the creativity of the team involved.
