Ad Campaigns
Hotstar rolls out another exciting TVC for its VIVO IPL 2019 campaign, #KoiYaarNahiFar
MUMBAI: Bringing viewers closer to the action, Hotstar, India’s largest premium video streaming platform, has added another exciting story to the VIVO IPL 2019 campaign, #KoiYaarNahiFar. Conceptualized and created by the DDB Mudra Group, the new TVC features a small-town Indian superhero, played by actor Shashank Arora, inviting his other superhero friends to watch the game with him. Unfortunately, his friends are stuck using their powers for some underwhelming, household work, making it difficult even for the ostensibly powerful local superhero group to come together. Finally, Hotstar connects the superheroes through its first-ever social cricket-watching experience, ensuring that they don’t miss out on the unmatched joy of watching the game with each other.
This entertaining new TVC has been rolled out in three languages, Hindi, Tamil and Telugu, and is also available across Hotstar’s social platforms.
Continuing its tradition of being a game-changer in the space, Hotstar is ensuring VIVO IPL 2019 is an exhilarating affair for all its users. With ‘Koi Yaar Nahi Far’, the streaming giant is bringing people together irrespective of their location giving viewers the opportunity to invite their friends and family to Hotstar, watch the matches, and participate in the Watch ‘N Play game together. Fans can compete and see where they stand against their friends and family through the new social leaderboard.
They can also make their voices heard by chatting about the match or their Watch ‘N Play experience, not only with their friends and family, but also with experts and celebrities. In an interesting product integration, winners of the Watch ‘N Play games can redeem their points courtesy the exclusive partnership with Amazon Pay.
This edition of the VIVO IPL has started off with a bang, with Hotstar garnering 135 million viewers in the first three days of the tournament itself. This figure is 2.2X the reach and 2.2X the watchtime of the first three days of last year’s IPL. Collectively, Hotstar aims to reach 300 million viewers through the course of VIVO IPL 2019.
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.
