Ad Campaigns
HDFC Bank launches star-studded PayZapp campaign
Mumbai: HDFC Bank announced the launch of a PayZapp campaign. The campaign features actors Tiger Shroff, Prabhu Deva and Kapil Sharma utilising their immense popularity for a wide consumer connection.
The tongue-in-cheek campaign, conceptualised by Wondrlab India, a martech network, includes three films featuring the three actors wherein each showcases a range of payment choices that PayZapp offers. The campaign came from the insight that some people live their whole lives without having choices, but now they do not have to, at least when it comes to payments.
HDFC Bank group head, chief marketing officer and head direct to consumer business Ravi Santhanam said, “With PayZapp, we have revamped the payment experience for all consumers extensively, making the journey smoother and easier – be it via UPI, cards or PayZapp wallet. It is not just a payment app; it is a lifestyle enabler. We want to reach every part of the country aiming to be the preferred choice of payment app for consumers. The three films on PayZapp have beautifully captured the essence of our brand message.”
Wondrlab India the CCO and co-founder Amit Akali said, “We took a contrarian approach while conceptualising the campaign. We explored how we can drive the point of unlimited choices by showing the viewers what happens when they don’t have a choice in life. That is why, we cast the celebrities most known for something, tired of only being seen in those specific roles and wishing for more choices.”
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.
