Ad Campaigns
Influencer marketing is a key pillar of our growth strategy: Ipshita Chowdhury, CMO, Valvoline Cummins India JV
Mumbai: Mechanics are the most important person for anyone who owns a vehicle, Valvoline Cummins honours mechanics in numerous countries and they celebrate the importance of the mechanics as knowledgeable professionals critical to keep the engines running – and people moving forward.
Mechanics play a very important role for any vehicle owner and all of us can relate to stories as to how a mechanic has helped them out in instances where a car battery has given up but he has come and helped even if it was in the middle of nowhere or in the middle of the night
Valvoline Cummins Private Limited (“Valvoline Cummins”), the Original Engine Oil maker and a leading global lubricant manufacturer powering the future of mobility through innovative services and products, initiated the 3rd edition of the mechanic month campaign globally and in India. The campaign revolves around the theme; ‘‘Keeping the World Turning” and aims to celebrate the effort of mechanics and thank them for their dedicated endeavours to keep the world turning.
Indiantelevision.com spoke to Valvoline Cummins India JV CMO Ipshita Chowdhury on the importance of this campaign and the other initiatives.
On the idea behind celebrating the mechanic month campaign by Valvoline every year in March?
Valvoline Cummins has been celebrating Mechanic Month for three years in a row in India. The first campaign came out in March 2021 during the pandemic and was focused on thanking mechanics for ensuring all medical and other essential service personnel reached their destinations on time.
March is a month that is dedicated to mechanics; globally Valvoline celebrates March as International Mechanics Month. We believe the community of mechanics has played a significant role in the brand’s success and growth throughout the world; they are our biggest ambassadors in the market. Hence, this is a time when we express our gratitude to them through various initiatives that go beyond transactions and strengthen relationships.
As we are towards the end of this mechanic month, through this campaign, we have honoured the mechanics in numerous countries and will celebrate their importance as knowledgeable professionals critical to keeping engines running – and the world turning.
On how the brand has come forward for the mechanics? What are initiatives the brand’s been doing for the Mechanics Community?
Since we as a brand believe, our success is closely linked with the success of mechanics; all our initiatives reflect and are rooted in this principle. We have been imparting engine technology training to mechanics for the last several years and have meaningfully impacted the livelihoods of more than 15000 mechanics so far. Engine technology has been rapidly evolving, hence training and upskilling are critical for them.
Muskaan scholarship is another initiative that is very close to our hearts, through this we support the education of children of the mechanic community, across classes 9-12. Through the tough times of covid, several capable students could not continue their studies and that is when we as a brand stepped in. Today, I am pleased to share that more than 1800 girls and boys are in this program, and more than half are girls.
Recently at a mechanics meet organised in Delhi. The brand felicitated the children who have performed well under the Muskan Scholarship and were handed over Laptops, Tablets and other educational aids.
On the conceptualisation of this year’s campaign ‘Keeping the World Turning’
No matter what the vehicle is – from trucks to tractors to ambulances to buses to cars, mechanics are the ones who keep our world turning. They are the silent heroes who work tirelessly in the background so that we are able to reach our destinations on time. This was the simple insight for our campaign.
Through this ongoing initiative, we want to inspire people to show appreciation to their mechanics for their relentless efforts in keeping the world turning. The campaign was carried out on various mass media platforms such as radio, digital and on-ground. The campaign aims to sensitize people about the hard work that mechanics put into caring for our vehicles and encourage them to extend heartfelt messages to their trusted mechanics.
On the media mix strategy? How does your approach differ from competitors towards audience engagement?
Our biggest differentiator is the fact each of our employees step out in the market in their own way and reach out to mechanics and provide the most personal touch. This outreach is then supplemented by radio and social media that provide us with the larger air cover.
On the brand betting on influencer marketing? As this has become one of the most commonly used marketing tools to engage with target groups?
Influencer marketing is a key pillar of our growth strategy; it is sustainable and long-term in nature. We strongly believe that short-term tactics and offers have their relevance; however for a brand to grow sustainably and consistently, relationship-building with key influencers and having them on our side is critical.
We will continue to focus on our loyalty platforms with influencers enabling and empowering them with a greater digital footprint and traffic generation. Brand-building efforts will continue to make Valvoline synonymous with Original Engine Oil.
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.
