Ad Campaigns
HP launches ‘Stories of India’ campaign to preserve folklore through AI
Mumbai: HP India is celebrating Diwali with the launch of its campaign, ‘Stories of India with HP,’ blending tradition with technology in a heartfelt story of legacy preservation. The campaign follows Sharad, a retired storyteller who embodies an older generation, often overlooked in today’s digital-first world. Through Sharad’s journey, HP showcases the transformative role of AI in keeping folklore alive, offering a way to bridge generational divides through innovative storytelling.
In this campaign, HP reaffirms its commitment to empowering creators, storytellers, and elders, envisioning a future where cultural heritage and technology can thrive together. The story unfolds with Sharad, who, feeling adrift after retirement, reconnects with his storytelling roots when his granddaughter visits for Diwali. As he shares his beloved tales, he realises the threat traditional storytelling faces in the digital age. Guided by his daughter, Sharad explores HP’s AI-powered tools, creating animated versions of his stories and launching his own YouTube channel, revitalising folklore for future generations.
HP India, SVP & MD, Ipsita Dasgupta commented, “At HP, we believe that technology has the power to preserve the heart and soul of our cultural heritage. Our film tells a story of how technology innovations such as AI can weave together the past and present, uniting generations through the magic of timeless tales. We hope this story inspires everyone to embrace innovation while preserving the richness of our heritage for future generations.”
Since its release, the campaign film has garnered over 26 million views, resonating deeply with audiences across platforms.
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.
