Ad Campaigns
Honor X9b #RIPTemperedGlass campaign reshapes smartphone durability
Mumbai: In an innovative move, HONOR has redefined the landscape of marketing campaigns with its recent initiative “RIP Tempered Glass.” This avant-garde campaign, which unfolded from 27 to 31January garnered widespread attention and engagement across various social media platforms. By employing an unique and engaging approach, blending humour, relatability, and visual storytelling, the campaign aimed at addressing the persistent challenges faced by curved tempered glass on smartphones.
The campaign started with a consumer survey on Amazon which further demonstrated the issue. About 73 per cent of the respondents experienced display damage from accidental drops and 90 per cent of them are still looking for a durable ‘crack-proof’ phone.
This was followed by X storm featuring influencers and micro-influencers who shared intriguing open-ended statements bidding farewell to something or ending a relationship. The hashtag #RIPTemperedGlass trended as X users joined the conversation, creating a buzz around the campaign.
HONOR’s creative approach continued with visually striking content. The company released visuals depicting a broken phone, scratched screens forming a screaming face, and a symbolic breakup between a phone and tempered glass. The message was clear – it’s time to say goodbye to tempered glass and embrace a new era of phone protection.
The campaign’s highlight was the creation of a humorous obituary for tempered glass, accompanied by a formal template and a heartfelt eulogy. The campaign portrayed tempered glass as a “Scream-guard” that shielded users from the shock of dropping their phones. The accompanying visuals and narrative humorously bid farewell to this unsung hero of the smartphone era.
In new move, HONOR produced a full-fledged funeral/tribute video for tempered glass, marked by its sarcastic and funny tonality. The video celebrated tempered glass as an imperfect defender of screens everywhere, concluding with a symbolic gesture featuring Mario from the iconic video game series. As he encounters a Mobile repair shop selling tempered glass, Mario rejects it, highlighting the durability of his HONOR phone.
Through the #RIPTemperedGlass campaign, HONOR Smartphone sends a clear message – display innovation is at the heart of their brand. The campaign balances humour and creativity while highlighting the durability of HONOR phones. With this, HONOR smartphone looks forward to a future marked by durable screens and enhanced user experiences.
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.
