Ad Campaigns
Dhoni shoots Kingfisher TVC with reel hero
MUMBAI: Kingfisher Premium, in association with the forthcoming biopic, M.S. Dhoni – The Untold Story, has launched a new television commercial. The movie showcases the cricketer’s journey to success enacted by Sushant Singh Rajput. The TVC is an ode to the making of India’s multitalented cricketing star and captain.
In the commercial, the two are seen sharing the screen space to celebrate success, friendship and the real spirit of good times; creating reel magic with their camaraderie.
“Sushant shares a close relationship with the brand, and when we saw the opportunity to bring him to share screen space with MSD, we didn’t want to let go of it,” said UBL senior VP, marketing, Samar Singh Sheikhawat.
He added, “Cricket and Bollywood are what we Indians are most passionate about. We want to encourage fans to take time to bond with friends and make new ones, reiterating the fact that these social actions have always existed and are best enjoyed over ‘The Original Social Network’ – Kingfisher”.
Rhiti Group chairman and producer of the movie, Arun Pandey, added,“Sushant is the brand ambassador of Kingfisher while, MS has been associated with the brand through IPL associations. I am sure MS’s fans and followers will enjoy the video and will be excited to watch Sushant play Dhoni in the upcoming biopic which releases worldwide on 30 September.”
Rajput said, “We came together to celebrate this very special moment when we were shooting for the Kingfisher commercial. I couldn’t think of a better way to celebrate our camaraderie than to come together on-screen with the legend.”
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.
