Ad Campaigns
Dharmendra was also the advertisers’ favourite
MUMBAI: Dharmendra Singh Deol didn’t just conquer Hindi cinema—he owned India’s advertising landscape too. The actor, who died on 24 November, brought his trademark machismo and million-watt smile to dozens of television commercials, transforming mundane products into must-haves for millions of Indians.
His Rajdoot motorcycle campaign remains legendary. Clad in a sleeveless vest, Dharmendra extolled the two-wheeler’s toughness before delivering his signature sign-off: “Rajdoot. A travel companion with a lot of life. A special travel companion.” It was vintage Dharmendra—effortless, earthy, authentic.
The Bagpiper soda commercial showcased his playful side. He growled his famous line—”Kaminey, mein tera khoon pee jaonga” (You rascal, I’ll drink your blood)—before softening into romance and inviting viewers to share a Bagpiper with him. Surrogate advertising never looked so seductive.
Perhaps his most memorable outing was for the National Egg Coordination Committee. In a riotous roadside dhaba scene, Dharmendra thrashed a reluctant owner into making a ten-egg omelette, flirted with a young woman asking for “Sunny,” and quipped “Sunny side up” before the punchline dropped: “Sunday ho ya Monday, ande khao, garam Dharam ban jao” (Sunday or Monday, eat eggs and become hot like Dharam).
He also pitched Yummy Chef ready-to-eat meals in Hindi and Punjabi, Ford New Holland tractors, Qwik and Massimo batteries, and Sona Chandi Kesar Chawanprash—a portfolio as diverse as his six-decade film career.
In an era before social-media influencers, Dharmendra was the original brand whisperer. He sold products the old-fashioned way: with charm, conviction and that inimitable swagger. India bought everything he was selling.
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.
