Ad Campaigns
Honda says ‘life runs on two wheels, not one’ in new Activa campaign
Mumbai: Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI) has unveiled a special film to encapsulate the emotions of millions of Indians as the country gets back on its feet while navigating through the pandemic.
Conceptualised by Taproot Dentsu, an ad film titled ‘India Ke Do Pahiye’ celebrates the ‘Never Give Up’ spirit of Indians as they gear up to return and resume their routines –with a spoonful of courage, renewed hope, and confidence.
“As we look at our country and how it is getting back into shape, we felt that actually all of us are contributing towards it by being the two wheels of India. Each one of us is doing our bit to get India back on its feet,” said Taproot Dentsu creative head Titus Upputuru, who is also credited for the lyrics of the creative.
“This campaign is a salute to the relentless spirit of India and only a leader brand like Activa can do this kind of salutation. The brief was to capture this spirit & movement of India bouncing back,” stated Upputuru. “Activa has been around for two decades & having by far the best visibility across length & breadth of the country. Activa is synonymous with the two wheels moving India.”
“The campaign emphasises upon India’s diversity, equality & inclusivity in taking the nation forward amidst the challenges of the new normal post-pandemic,” said Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India director, sales & marketing, Yadvinder Singh Guleria. “Ushering in the wave of positivity, the film showcases how each one of us in our own capacity, represents the resilience, determination, and dedication with which our country is emerging stronger.”
Directed by Arun Francis and produced by Murali Govindan, the aim of the film is to motivate Indians to become the two wheels of the nation and move the country forward.
“This was a sort of catharsis for the agency and much beyond a brief. The approach was ‘Simply to Amplify’ as Activa is loved by multiple generations of consumers across India and it was only fitting that a brand of Activa’s stature talked about how India and Indians are making a comeback after the most difficult times,” commented Taproot Dentsu office head Abhinav Kaushik. “The spirit of humanity to rise from a crisis and the spirit of every Indian to stride positively has been beautifully captured in the ‘India Ke Do Pahiye’ concept.”
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.
