Ad Campaigns
CNN-News18 in partnership with Smile Foundation launches #DilliKiHawaBadlo campaign
MUMBAI: Of the world’s 30 most polluted cities, 22 are in India. New Delhi, one of the most polluted capitals in the world, again witnessed record-high levels of air pollution earlier this season forcing schools to be closed. Continuing with its motto of ‘On Your Side’, CNN-News18, in partnership with Smile Foundation launched a unique state-wide awareness campaign – #DilliKiHawaBadlo. Endorsed by top schools across the capital, the initiative aimed at raising cognizance on the importance ofindividual contribution towards curbing air pollution.
The campaign was geared towards educating children to act on day-to-day activities and bring change at the ground level. Commenting on the initiative, Network18 English & Business News Cluster CEO Basant Dhawan said, “Air pollution has become a serious environmental and public health emergency. We, at CNN-News18, have always believed in raising relevant issues and creating impactful conversations to drive change. Through this initiative, we aim to mobilise the society with children as the change agents. We are focused on creating a steady drumbeat around such burning issues and with such campaigns, we are going beyond television to speak directly to our viewers.”
Elaborating on the campaign, Smile Foundation Co-founder and Trustee Santanu Mishra said, "Our ChildforChild programme seeks to inculcate a conscience and value system in the children so that they grow up to become responsible citizens and change-makers. Through #DilliKiHawaBadlo, we conducted workshops on air pollution, which included both awareness on the issue, as well as ways to protect themselves and the planet. Simple actions like planting trees, curbing plastic use, recycling waste etc. that can be carried out by students were discussed. We thank CNN-News18 for this collaboration in helping us bring to light such an important issue."
Given that children are highly perceptive to change, the campaign primarily focused on inculcating behaviour change at an individual and household level through continuous education and awareness. In a month-long outreach, the initiative received overwhelming participation from the top schools of New Delhi such as Sardar Patel Vidyalaya, Air Force Bal Bharti, Delhi International School amongst others. The experts from Smile Foundation conducted workshops with hundreds of students. CNN-News18 distributed anti-pollution masks and engaged with over 700 individuals including students, teachers, support staff and parents to help them stay healthy while outdoors
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.
