Ad Campaigns
Belgian Waffle Co stirs up National Waffle Day with #WhatsYourDrill campaign
MUMBAI: The Belgian Waffle Co is flipping National Waffle Day on its head this year. No more boring 1 August – the company has rescheduled it to the third Wednesday of July, with this year’s big day falling on 16th July. And as ever, they’re pulling out all the stops with a pre-buzz campaign that’s as playful as their menu.
Enter #WhatsYourDrill, a campaign that taps straight into the brand’s fanbase’s obsession with their waffle rituals. Fans are asked to share their National Waffle Day plans – or rather, their ‘drills’ – in a bid to turn a humble date shift into a nationwide cultural moment. But here’s the twist: The campaign kicks off with a cheeky hoax – National Waffle Day is Cancelled! Cue panic from waffle lovers, before the big reveal: “Nope, it’s just rescheduled, folks!”
“As we celebrate 10 incredible years of The Belgian Waffle Co, National Waffle Day holds even greater significance for us this year. What began as a single-store idea has now become a national movement across 660+ stores, bringing smiles to millions every day.
Day is not just a day— it’s a celebration of our loyal community, our partners, and the culture we’ve built together. As India’s largest waffle brand, we remain committed to expanding access to quality desserts while staying rooted in innovation, consistency, and customer delight,” said The Belgian Waffle Co executive director and CEO Ankit Patel.
This tongue-in-cheek fake-out set the stage for the full-scale campaign, which is all about intrigue, humour, and pulling fans deep into the waffle web. Highlights include ‘Mission Announcement – The Gimmick,’ where all orders – both online and in-store – came with “classified” mission slips and 3D glasses that, when worn, revealed the new date: 16 July. How’s that for immersive?
Some meme that created a wave for the campaign:
Meanwhile, loyal fans received ‘Post Office Mission Letters’ and were inducted as Waffle Lieutenants, tasked with spreading the word. On the digital front, influencers will hijack timelines to show how they’re prepping for the big day.
On 16 July, all Waff-wiches and Waffle Crisps will go for just Rs 100 at over 660 stores across 220 cities. It’s the kind of crispy celebration fans live for – and this year, it’s got that extra crispy zing.
#WhatsYourDrill isn’t just about waffles, it’s about turning a random Wednesday into a movement. So, what’s your drill for National Waffle Day?
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.
