Ad Campaigns
IKEA embraces the LGBTQIA+ community with ‘The Closet’
Mumbai: Ahead of International LGBT Pride Day, IKEA releases a digital film, The Closet, that highlights the struggles faced by the LGBTQIA+ community and encourages people to be more inclusive and compassionate towards them. The video focuses on developing stronger allyship with the community through empathy and open dialogue, urging people to rethink stereotypes and embrace diversity.
Conceptualised by Leo Burnett, the campaign revolves around the message ‘Closets are for clothes and not identities’. The film is set in a busy IKEA store with a closet in the centre and leads with a thoughtful question to the ones who chose to enter the closet- “Many have lived here, can you?”. The film goes on to show the reactions of curious customers who step in to find out what’s behind the closed doors—silence and a pair of headphones replaying biases that people from the queer community hear even today. Customers leave the closet with the realisation that, while they can step out, many will continue to live inside.
Commenting on the video, IKEA India country marketing manager Anna Ohlin said, “At IKEA, we stand together with the LGBTQIA+ community to celebrate love, diversity, and inclusion. We believe authenticity is not something to hide but a gift to cherish. Many people continue to struggle to live their lives openly and, with this film, we want to create stronger awareness and inspire everyone to be true allies in society.”
“With The Closet, we intend to give a peek into the uncomfortable world for many in the LGBTQIA+ community. A reminder that we need to build a world that’s more accepting and filled with love – where nobody has to live in a space that’s uncomfortable, just for being their authentic self. We hope this sparks a debate in everyone’s homes, and inspires reassuring actions,” said Leo Burnett Bengaluru Burnett national creative director Pravin Sutar.
IKEA embraces the LGBTQIA+ Community with ‘The Closet’.MP4
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.
