Ad Campaigns
Harshdeep Kaur to judge Advertising Rocks’ at Goafest 2024
Mumbai: Goafest’s ‘Advertising Rocks,’ provides India’s advertising and media fraternity with a platform unlike any other. Offering participants the opportunity to showcase their musical talent, Goafest’s Advertising Rocks is currently in its second season. Raising the bar higher, Goafest 2024 now welcomes Bollywood playback singer Harshdeep Kaur as a judge. Additionally joining Harshdeep will be Brandmusiq founder & soundsmith Rajeev Raja, and music director and Brandmusiq founding partner & principal composer Merlin D’Souza. Nominations for Advertising Rocks can be submitted until Sunday, 19 May 2024.
Goafest 2024 invites participants to submit their nominations in two categories: Indian soloists and international soloists. Entries received will be shortlisted by Rajeev Raja, Merlin D’Souza, and BBH former CEO and curator Subhash Kamath, ‘Advertising Rocks’. Finalists will be presented with an opportunity to perform for Goafest 2024 attendees in Mumbai and winners will take home prizes up to Rs. 50,000.
“The Indian advertising and media industry is teeming with talent”, said BBH former CEO and curator of Advertising Rocks Subhash Kamath. “It’s always inspiring for our industry youngsters to perform in front of professionals. Last year we had Papon as one of the judges and this year we have Harshdeep Kaur, who’s a fabulous singer.”
“Music transcends language, culture, and genre; it’s a universal emotion and given my passion for music, it is an integral part of my life,” said Havas Media Network India CEO and Goafest 2024 co-chair Mohit Joshi. “We were greatly impressed by the talent showcased last year and are incredibly excited to see this year’s performances. Goafest is truly a celebration of creativity, and we are committed to evolving it with new and exciting concepts every year. We encourage all eligible performers to participate and make the most of this wonderful platform to showcase their talent to the industry,” he added.
Submit your entries for Advertising Rocks here: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdUKKIsShHz6YwEc71ap_9-wbK1sIavU2lkShgd9-HBhq0row/viewform
Presented by The Advertising Agencies Association of India and The Advertising Club, Goafest 2024 is scheduled to take place on 29, 30 and 31 May, 2024 at The Westin Mumbai Powai Lake, Mumbai.
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.
