Ad Campaigns
IndIAA Awards 2025 spark a decade of creative brilliance
MUMBAI: When creativity takes centre stage, India applauds, and the 10th edition of the IndIAA Awards 2025 did just that. Presented by the India Chapter of the International Advertising Association (IAA), the gala honoured the country’s most innovative brands and agencies, celebrating a decade of excellence in storytelling, strategy, and societal impact.
From bold campaigns to culturally resonant ideas, the evening spotlighted winners across 16 categories. Nestle India took the crown in food & beverage, while Gabit led the consumer electronics category. Creative agencies Ogilvy and Moonshot dominated, each securing four awards, proving that strategy and imagination make the perfect duo.
Hero Motocorp, Swiggy, Asian Paints, Campus Activewear, Meta, and Urban Company were among the evening’s standout winners, demonstrating how brands continue to blend culture, emotion, and business impact through creativity. Shilpa Shetty was honoured as the “Most disruptive brand in the entertainment Industry,” adding star power to a night of recognition.
This year also saw the celebration of the All-India winners of the AFAA’s Changemakers for Good Awards, recognising campaigns that drive real societal change rather than just sales. Highlights included R K Swamy’s Happy Breastfeeding Week – Himalaya Babycare for advertising and innovation, and Associated Advertising’s T-Safe awareness campaign for government initiatives.
Meta India MD & country head and jury chairperson Arun Srinivas praised the calibre of entries, saying, “It truly is a testament to the creative excellence that our country is known for. This year, we also assessed digital storytelling, reflecting the changing landscape of how brands connect with audiences.”
IAA India chapter president Abhishek Karnani added “The IndIAA Awards stand for creativity backed by insight and purpose. Tonight, we honour work that drives business and uses communication as a force for good.”
The awards reaffirmed India’s status as a hub of ingenuity, collaboration, and impactful storytelling. From homegrown icons to new-age disruptors, the 2025 edition of IndIAA proved that great ideas don’t just win awards, they change the game.
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.
