Ad Campaigns
Budweiser’s digital film ‘We Are All Kings’ celebrates diversity through the lens of Holi
MUMBAI: Budweiser, true to its brand purpose, has launched a digital film showcasing the colourful festival of Holi as the ultimate celebration of inclusion and positivity that transcends cultures and boundaries. The feature effectively displays the brand’s overarching sentiment of bolstering individuals to be themselves.
Set in an urban Indian locale, the video depicts an energetic Holi celebration where a group of people are seen happily clad in colour while smearing each other’s faces. A sudden downpour of rain slowly unmasks their faces, which reveals to everyone’s surprise that the people celebrating are not the usual suspects, but are diverse individuals who have come together to celebrate the festival. This diversity transcends nationality, religion, caste, and gender, yet people are seen to be visibly comfortable and jolly in each other’s presence, while reveling in the inclusive vibe of Holi.
Talking about this campaign, AB InBev vice president marketing – south Asia Kartikeya Sharma said, “At Budweiser, we have been constantly striving to inspire people to own their lives and be freedom energisers, not only for themselves but also for others. Holi is a global gathering that disregards stereotypical notions, and supersedes prejudice with a feeling of absolute togetherness. With this film, we aim to debunk the divide and unite people through the shades of the festival.”
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.
