Ad Campaigns
Farmley: When Dravid met Deewar, pop culture met nostalgia
Mumbai: Cinema and cricket, the two lifebloods of our country, are often seen as separate realms when it comes to advertisements. Movie stars typically embody their film characters and styles, while cricketers exude their on-field charisma on-screen.
The new Farmley ad films featuring Rahul Dravid have beautifully merged these two worlds – Cricket and Cinema. Famously known as ‘The Wall’ in the cricketing world, Dravid steps into the shoes of an iconic character from the movie ‘Deewar.’ The connection between ‘The Wall’ and ‘Deewar’ has been conveyed through humorous spoofs and Dravid’s charm in these two films, launched by Farmley and Talented.Agency, in collaboration with production house Momo Media.
Although the films garnered attention and established a link with an iconic character, it’s Dravid’s appearance in boot-cut trousers, a deep blue shirt, and sleek black hair against a rustic backdrop that made these films all the more entertaining.
The film even adds a humorous twist and pays homage to a popular dialogue we all remember: “Mere paas maa hai” from the movie Deewar.
“We knew we had to achieve two things – create a quintessential Rahul Dravid ad and make it unbelievably hilarious.’The Wall’ had been on our minds for a while, but it was the craftsmanship, acting, and dialogues that made all the difference,” says Talented founding partner Prashant Gopalakrishnan. Farmley head of marketing Aman Gupta shares, “We didn’t want to use Rahul as a prop in the end slate like most celebrity-led films. We really wanted to bring his acting, his personality, and wit to the screens.”
Over the years, we’ve seen ads attempting to stand out by infusing a personal touch into celebrity endorsements. However, by featuring Dravid, Farmley and Talented go beyond using just one celebrity and instead harness the power of a celebrity and an iconic character, bringing twice the amount of recall to the films.
“We wanted to show that Rahul can embody a character that was exactly opposite to his own personality, and can still give a terrific performance,” said Gopalakrishnan.
We have seen Dravid become ad land’s favourite from time to time, but we haven’t seen such contrast in his character and the role he has played in these newest films. As the cricket fever takes its pace with the Asia Cup and the World Cup, we will have an influx of ads that will be centric to cricket and popular culture, but breaking the clutter is easier said than done.
But when you harp on the films that millennials grew up with featuring one of the most loved sports persons of their time, you’re sure to get a hit of nostalgia and humour in between the match breaks.
‘The Wall’ becoming ‘Deewar’ will be a treat to see when it hits the screen during this Asia Cup and World Cup.
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.
