Ad Campaigns
Idea revives iconic ‘What an Idea’ campaign with ‘Not Working? Try NETworking’
MUMBAI: Idea has revived its iconic ‘What an Idea’ campaign with its new ‘Not working? Try NETworking’ spot. Keeping the intrinsic purpose of the brand to address social issues and work as an enabler for change, the new campaign, developed by BBDO India, aims to address the issues of unemployment and underemployment. It showcases the myriad opportunities that the internet, through Idea 4G network, throws open to people from different age groups and socio-economic backgrounds, across India. Directed by Sandeep Yadav, the campaign will be promoted through TV, Radio and Digital media.
Explaining the rationale behind the new Brand campaign with one of Idea’s most loved taglines, Vodafone Idea chief digital transformation and brand officer Kavita Nair said, “Idea was the first telecom brand in India to take a step beyond the transactional plane to showcase how mobile telephony can transform people’s lives in a positive manner. Each Idea campaign, over the years, has focused on social issues prevalent at that time and championed causes which are relevant and appeal to urban and rural audiences alike.”
Nair added, “The new brand campaign ‘NOT working? Try NETworking’ has been conceptualised with the objective of tapping the immense love and affinity the brand enjoys – by telling short, hope infusing stories. Through the narrative, we highlight the reliability of high speed Internet on Idea 4G which can help spark a million innovative ideas and a million opportunities to create a better future for urban and rural Indians, signing off with the iconic ‘What an idea!’”
For more than a decade, Idea brand campaigns have taken up issues that have affected society and/or individuals and given them a creative spin by highlighting innovative ideas that demonstrated how mobile telephony offers solutions to these problems. Each brand campaign has played an integral role in building the brand’s persona and salience. The latest NETworking series of three TVCs carry the brand’s signature tune and creative treatment and went live today.
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.
