Ad Campaigns
Coca-Cola urges to make Diwali special for someone
MUMBAI: With the theme ‘Iss Diwali, Har Dil Bola Tere Naam Ki Coca-Cola’, the new Diwali campaign of Coca-Cola India inspires consumers to make this Diwali special for someone.
The campaign has a joyful message, that the happiness we derive from moments of genuine human connection will always continue to transcend any differences we may perceive.
Coca-Cola has launched a new TV commercial which has been created on the core message of connecting cultures, featuring actors Ayushmann Khurrana and Anupriya Goenka.
The TVC opens in a porch area of a South Indian house where a North Indian boy is seen leaving the house while talking to his mother on phone. The boy is seen reminiscing about the times he celebrated Diwali back home. His neighbour, a South Indian lady happens to overhear the conversation and starts thinking about it. Upon his return in the evening, the boy witnesses the porch beautifully decorated with diyas and rangoli with ‘Shubh Deepawali’ adorning the entrance of neighbour’s home.
The boy is elated when he sees the neighbour’s family standing at the door, as he realises that the family made all these efforts to make his festival special. Overwhelmed with joy, the boy asks the family if he could do anything to thank them, to which the lady suggests he can share his Coca-Cola with them. The boy smiles and pours Coca-Cola for everyone and starts enjoying the festival.
Coca-Cola India VP of sparkling category Shrenik Dasani says, “Diwali is a special time of the year which we seek to celebrate at home, with those we love and consider our own people. Sometimes though, we find ourselves away from home and while we celebrate, we are always thinking about that feeling of being among our own people – our family, friends and those who share our cultural background. With this in mind, Coca-Cola’s Diwali campaign brings to audiences a message of sharing and celebrating moments of joyful human connection. It gives a festive call to take that small step and make someone’s Diwali more special.”
McCann Worldgroup CEO and CCO India, chairman Asia Pacific Prasoon Joshi adds, “India is a beautifully diverse country and specially when it comes to festivals, we have a lot to celebrate and share. This campaign is trying to suggest that let’s know each other’s festivals better and
celebrate them together for a more united and connected world.”
The multi-faceted campaign includes a number of consumer touch points, including multi-city social media marketing activations like #ShareAWish, where consumers can share their customised Diwali wishes on Coca-Cola India’s social media channels and journey in their own languages through greetings, GIFs and voice messages. These messages will also be displayed through outdoor marketing along with the name of the well-wishers.
Coca-Cola has also extended the range of festival special gift packs to offer excellent gifting option for consumers that will be available in attractive new design with gold motifs.
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.
