Ad Campaigns
Dentsu Marcom gives ‘raw, real, ripped’ look to CB Hornet 160R
MUMBAI: Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) has premiered the television commercial (TVC) for its CB Hornet 160R. In sync with its aggressive warrior styling, the new commercial of CB Hornet 160R coincided with the much awaited world television premier of 2015’s biggest hit – Bajirao Mastani.
Developed by Dentsu Marcom, a Dentsu Aegis Network Company, the TVC that is running on air across channels has received a welcome response from the youth.
The brief to agency was to create an adrenalin high communication that reinforces the uniqueness of CB Hornet 160R and its advancements in terms of performance, style and technology to the target audience.
Elaborating on Honda’s communication line for the CB Hornet 160R, Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India sales and marketing SVP Yadvinder Singh Guleria said, “Honda launched the new CB Hornet 160R, heralding a new era of Street Naked Sports biking in India. Through this TVC, we have tried to showcase the attributes like unbridled power, ambition, sheer hard work and precision that goes behind sculpting those perfect bodies, be it today’s youth or their machine- the CB Hornet 160R. Within just 4 months of its launch, the CB Hornet 160R has stuck an immediate resonance with the customers and this TVC will definitely help us soar to even greater heights.”
The film was conceptualised to show the inherent connect between new CB Hornet 160R and its identified target group.
“The human body is incredibly built. It’s the greatest machine that is ever built on earth. And increasingly, more than ever before, gyms are mushrooming all over the country, in basements, on terraces, and in swank glass buildings. The new CB Hornet 160 is for this new generation that is as much passionate about building their bodies as it is about motorcycles,” said Dentsu Marcom, NCD Titus Upputuru.
The ad film explores the parallel journey of men building their bodies and the CB Hornet 160R being built in the factory. Fast-paced and edgy, the TVC, though visual and sound spectacle shows the coming together of, ‘building of the human body’ and ‘building of the bike body’, for road ripping ride. This is followed by thrilling shots of the riders creating an X on the tarmac that resembles the X-shaped LED tail lamp on CB Hornet 160R. The film ends with the tagline ‘Built After You’ linked that how the CB Hornet 160R is just as raw. real. ripped as its rider.
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.
