Ad Campaigns
Flipkart and The New Thing launch Thumbs Appa campaign
Mumbai: Based on the comedic reality that dad’s never fail to reply to every text with a thumbs-up emoji TNT’s latest campaign for Flipkart aims to turn the most underwhelming response from appa into the most sought-after one this Father’s Day.
With a CTA of ‘Impress your Appa with his own Thumbs Appa!’, the campaign broke with a hilarious film featuring a dad who owns up to every thumbs up they’ve ever sent. Stating that he knew all along that Flipkart would launch a campaign where you could exchange all these thumbs ups for big tickets for father’s day gifts. “Appa ke thenga unko gift denga”.
To participate, simply screenshot every thumbs-up emoji you’ve ever received from your father and either DM it to Flipkart on Instagram or reply to the pinned post on their X. Entrants who share the most screenshots stand a chance to win big ticket prizes like a smartphone, smart TV and a luxury watch.
On the inception of Thumbs Appa, Flipkart senior director, marketing & media Pratik Shetty said “At Flipkart, we believe that every occasion is an important opportunity to connect and celebrate with our customers. This Father’s Day, we took something as simple as a thumbs up emoji – which is a father’s unique way of expressing love & support and turned it into a fun and engaging contest, the
Flipkart Thumbs Appa! We’re thrilled to see how many thumbs-up our customers sent us and made this Father’s Day extra special for all the Appas everywhere by winning exciting gifts.”
The New Thing co-founder Viren Noronha added “After extensive research i.e. going through our own chats with our dads, the insight put the pain in painfully obvious. 7 out of 10 dads’ default reply to your every text will always be the thumbs up emoji. ‘Happy Father’s Day!’ thumbs up emoji. ‘I got a promotion’ thumbs up emoji. ‘I made an ad about you!’ thumbs up emoji. We just asked a simple question- how do you turn the most underwhelming response into something amazing, for dad’s themselves. Voila. Thumbs Appa!”
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.
