Ad Campaigns
Gionee unveils new brand identity through IPL’s KKR team
MUMBAI: Gionee, a global mobile phone brand is witnessing an identity change worldwide. As part of this exercise, the brand has unveiled a new logo in India. At the core of the logo change lies the fact that Gionee brings smiles on the faces of millions through its innovative technology.
Gionee is associated with the Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR) as principal sponsor, and saw an opportunity to leverage the team to talk about the logo change, and to launch it during the current season of the Indian Premiere League or IPL. The agency that was tasked to showcase this transformation for the brand was Mullen Lintas, Gurgaon.
Explaining the communications approach undertaken by the brand, Gionee AGM Nomit Joshi said: “Delighting our customers has always been an attitude that each and every one at Gionee believes in. Our new smiling logo and tagline ‘Make Smiles’ simply expresses it and invites everyone to engage with Gionee and include the brand in the delightful moments of their lives. We are excited that we were able to use team KKR to unveil our new logo as they provide many of us a reason to smile each time they play. I am sure that the new TVC would convey the same passion, energy and joy that the brand stands for.”
Sharing his views on the brief received by the client for the rebranding exercise Mullen Lintas executive director Syed Amjad Ali said, “Gionee is going through an exciting phase and is articulating its next level of growth. The new logo change signals that ambition. The role of the campaign was to create familiarity with the new identity and what it would stand for in future. We intend to make Gionee one of the most sought after brands in the country, something that people aspire for and this is just the beginning.”
The film begins with the KKR team players waiting for their new jerseys to arrive from the dealer. In the interim, the team is seen discussing what new elements would be present on the jersey including a new logo of Gionee. Just then the delivery man arrives and delivers the package to the players who try on their respective jerseys with much joy. On seeing the new logo that signifies a smiling face, the team captain Gautam Gambhir goes on to exclaim that ‘Gautam would no longer be Gambhir’ after wearing this jersey.
Sharing the creative execution undertaken for the campaign, Mullen Lintas NCD Shriram Iyer added, “The task of unveiling the new Gionee logo coupled with the brands association with team KKR allowed us to put the jersey to good use. The idea of a last minute change in the logo leads to a funny misunderstanding among the players. We are excited about this very unconventional way to launch a new identity.”
The film has been directed by Shayondeep Pal from Elements and has been launched ‘on and offline’ to coincide with the ongoing IPL season.
Agency Credits:
Agency: Mullen Lintas
Creative: Amer Jaleel, Shriram Iyer, Garima Khandelwal, Prasad Venkatraman, Sarabjit Singh, Arvind Murali, Angud, Vipul Kundra
Business: Virat Tandon, Syed Amjad Ali, Twishi Pande
Planning: Ekta Relan
Production house: Elements
Director: Shayondeep Pal
Ad Campaigns
Amazon Ads maps 2026 as AI and streaming rewrite ad playbooks
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.








