Ad Campaigns
Diageo India fuels road safety with Tab Lab rollout across all Goa RTOs
MUMBAI: In a move that blends digital grit with civic sense, Diageo India has extended its ‘Wrong Side of the Road’ (WSOTR) initiative across all seven Regional Transport Offices (RTOs) in Goa. The latest Tab Lab, launched at the Panaji RTO, was inaugurated by the Goa CM Pramod Sawant, making it a full sweep for the initiative across the state.
The initiative, driven in partnership with Bharatcares and the Directorate of Transport, brings interactive, tech-enabled driver education to life. Targeting drink driving behaviour, the programme uses real-life simulations to highlight the harsh consequences of unsafe driving. Each Tab Lab delivers a mandatory 45-minute immersive experience to all new driving licence applicants. These modules include behavioural assessments and interactive films designed to simulate the dangers of driving under the influence.
“We congratulate and thank Bharatcares and Diageo India for implementing this CSR project”, said Sawant at the inauguration. “This small step will have a long-term impact in reducing accidents. No licence will be issued or renewed without watching this film”.
The Panaji launch brings the number of WSOTR Tab Labs in India to over 70, bolstering Diageo’s goal of sensitising one million people to responsible driving by 2030. The initiative falls under the company’s broader ‘Spirit of Progress’ ESG framework.
“Changing attitudes is key to addressing the root causes of drink driving”, said Diageo India head of corporate relations Devashish Dasgupta. “With our partners at BharatCares and support from the Goa government, we are scaling WSOTR to equip drivers with the awareness they need to make responsible choices”.
Bharatcares AVP – social impact programs Abhishek Tyagi echoed the sentiment, “Through initiatives like the Tab Lab, we are fostering a collective effort to build safer, more responsible communities”.
The WSOTR campaign isn’t just about ticking compliance boxes. It’s a behavioural nudge wrapped in immersive tech—a civic reset disguised as a touchscreen.
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.
