Ad Campaigns
Honda 2Wheelers, Dentsu One wish “Happy 2009”
MUMBAI: Honda 2Wheelers rang in the New Year in a quirky manner as they wished the industry “Happy 2009” in January 2019. The move was a part of an interesting print ad campaign conceptualised and developed by Dentsu One – a Dentsu Aegis Network agency.
The peg behind the innovative campaign was the government regulation making it compulsory to equip every 2-wheeler of less than 125cc engine capacity with a Combi-Brake System (CBS) from 1 April 2019 onwards. Honda 2wheelers, on the other hand, had introduced the Combi-brake system in India (with equaliser technology) way back in 2009.
The agency revealed its approach towards creating the campaign, which has caught many eyeballs, stating, “The approach was to create a disruptive communication to grab reader’s attention and inform them about brand Honda’s technology leadership. The opportune time – first day of the year was selected strategically to make the message more clutter breaking.”
Dentsu One national creative director Titus Upputuru said, “At Dentsu Aegis Network we try to build brands through innovative ideas. This is an example of that spirit. Salute to Honda Two Wheelers for buying into this unique creative and release it nationally. Usual shelf life of a print ad is one day however it clearly broke the trend with conversations about the advt. & creative going viral on digital medium long after the newspaper has gone into the bin. We are delighted with the response.”
Dentsu One executive vice president Abhinav Kaushik added, “We wanted to create a communication that had immense stop value and the power to hold the reader’s attention without any dilution. A communication is considered as really effective when people start talking about it and this is what is happening right now. The objective of the campaign to reaffirm Honda’s leadership position stands successfully achieved.”
Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India senior vice president, sales and marketing Yadvinder Singh Guleria mentioned, “Honda has always been at the fore front of new technology introduction. We have a history of creating history in technology benchmarks adding value & convenience for our customers. While the industry is now adopting CBS aligning with regulation, we are proud to say that more than two crore happy customers are already riding CBS equipped Honda 2Wheelers. A clutter breaking simple communication to reinforce brand Honda’s technology leadership on New Year’s day was the core of this campaign.”
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.
