Ad Campaigns
Cred and T Rajendar show Chennai the rewards of paying bills on time
MUMBAI: Cred invoked the iconic T Rajendar to spotlight the rewards of good financial behaviour in its new, quintessentially ‘TR’ brand film.
Speaking directly to ‘TR Nation’, the campaign celebrates the legendary performer’s unmistakable delivery and presence as a multi-hyphenate actor, director, producer, lyricist, composer, and singer. Now, he dons one more hat: that of an explainer, where he transforms creditworthiness from a concept to a conversation – a rewarding one.
The campaign comes at a time when Chennai is emerging as one of India’s most financially aware cities. In a recent Cred–YouGov survey:
● 65 per cent of respondents in Chennai know their exact credit score, the highest among all Indian metros
● 52 per cent report credit adoption, indicating deeper engagement with formal credit systems
● Nearly 1 in 2 residents (46 per cent) rely on personal finance apps to manage their money
With the film, Cred and TR show this financially progressive community that creditworthiness can be rewarding too. In a few seconds, a late-night doomscroll turns into a walk through the rewards that Cred members earn by paying their bills on the app – jewellery, vacations, gadgets, makeovers, and other experiences.
Launched yesterday, the film will run for six weeks across Tamil Nadu. The campaign continues on the app as well, with curated offers on brands like Butterheads, VS Mani, Bodycraft, Sangeetha Veg, Cha Republic, Giva, A2B, Lakme and many more. CRED members in Tamil Nadu can also access limited-edition TR merchandise on CRED Store.
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.
