Ad Campaigns
Faber-Castell makes every user an influencer for new range of water colours
MUMBAI: Many brands are now looking at influencer-led marketing as a method as more informative and personal way of communication to their audience. Faber-Castell India has adopted a unique way of reaching out to its audience where they are adopting loyal brand customers as influencers.
Riding on the concept of “Every user is an influencer”, Faber-Castell India has launched a 2 month long #FaberCastellWaterColourChallenge to engage with its artist community online.
The Campaign began with the creative visual artist, Vimal Chandran, unboxing his uniquely prepared calendar for Faber-Castell which can be painted using the brand’s new range of watercolours. Faber-Castell India reached out to their artists’ community and gifted them a box of the new watercolors, that come with a palette and brush, along with VimalChandran’s creative calendar as well as a personalized note to all. Apart from unboxing the packs and reviewing the product, the campaign was developed into a challenge, wherein the users were encouraged to share their cheat sheets, techniques and complete the challenge with all its conditions, using the watercolours in their artworks. They were also encouraged to tag their fellow artists to join the challenge and get a chance to win weekly or the grand prize. For Offline activation, Faber-Castell collaborated with the renowned Padma Shri Artist PareshMaity and Create Studio to host a Masterclassfor beginners and experts to encourage painting with watercolours.
Speaking on the launch of this new range, Business Head, Arts & Graphics Sonali Shah said “Faber-Castell India truly believes in creating an environment that highlights the experience of art in order to gain consumer loyalty. When we planned the launch of this range, we wanted it to reach to our loyal consumers first. To give it substance, we reached out to the creative and cool VimalChandran to design a set of cool art, which we then decided to turn it into a calendar since the campaign began in the new year.We then sent the new watercolour sets to our network of artist communities, so that they can create their own experiences and share it with fellow members and followers. We also hosted a master class with PareshMaity in collaboration with Create Studio to encourage beginners and advanced level artists to create watercolor art and are extremely excited to see interesting artworks pouring in every day.”
“As a brand we firmly want to dwell into consumer’s life as a companion and not just another product manufacturer, therefore that’s our key focus ‘Every user is an influencer’. We are looking forward to more and more users participating in our #FaberCastellWaterColourChallenge and we aim to build a larger community of passionate artists," said Faber-Castell India MD Partho Chakrabarti.
Faber-Castell’s Creative Studio watercolours have been manufactured and launched in India first and will be launched globally later in the year.
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.
