Ad Campaigns
#CoveringUpFails, Nivea Men confident
MUMBAI: Nivea Men started its new campaign #CoveringUpFails with a humorous take on a spy’s undercover mission, to highlight the importance of solving the problem of body odour instead of just covering it up.
In a category that’s cluttered with tales of the superficial strength of fragrances, Nivea Men continues to challenge norms and differentiate itself as an actual solution provider. The campaign hits on the problem of failing deodorants and the resulting emergence of body odour during the day. And in turn, establishes the product – Nivea Men body deodorizer as the real solution to the problem.
Targeting men’s habit of relying on quick fixes and shortcuts to take care of all of their problems, including that of body odour, the campaign brings alive the reality of these ‘failing cover ups’. It also aims to educate men on the importance of solving issues at the root by not depending on deodorants, as they only cover up body odour.
Nivea India marketing director Sunil Gadgil said, “The Indian consumers’ attitude towards body odour is ‘Not my problem’. The aim of this campaign is to create relevance of body odour for consumers without triggering their defence mechanism of ‘Not for me’. This film is part of a series of films created by Nivea India to seed the practice of ‘Odour control at the source’ aimed at consumers with the habit of spraying a fragrance on their shirt for masking the odour.”
The objective has been approached by looking through Nivea’s lens of care and asking– Who would require a fail-proof cover the most? The answer – An undercover spy. A man on an extremely important mission, where his identity is of the utmost importance to his success. The culmination of these thoughts, the digital film by DigitasLBi – ‘An Epic Undercover Fail’ urges men to prepare better for every one of life’s important missions – at work, with family, in public, or when with a loved one, as covering up always fails.
DigitasLBi, India creative director Akshat Bhardwaj said, “We had a powerful proposition in place –ordinary deodorants just cover up body odour and don’t get rid of it. So, we thought that it would be great fun to bring this out by riding on the image of a popular culture icon (Agent Double O Seven), and inserting a body odour situation into one of his undercover missions.”
With over three million views in just a week, the film continues to gain popularity among the digital audience and drive conversations around the campaign #CoveringUpFails. The three-week long campaign engages consumers around topics of body odour, deodorants, and the epic fail of Agent Double O Seven. Moreover, the story of the Agent is being promoted with quirky posters across social media as the spy’s latest film release. It’s a campaign for men who look for solutions, for men who like to be in control, and for men who don’t take shortcuts, especially when it comes to body odour.
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.
