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“Inspire and Be Inspired”at “D-CODE” – The debut edition of The Advertising Club’s India Digital Review
MUMBAI: Indian brands have undergone a digital awakening with digital engagement and innovation being an integral part of every brands core marketing strategy. With over 400M Indians online, digital is now well and truly mainstream. And brands are leveraging this massive reach to drive business impact. The Governments call for a technology conscious and savvy “Digital India” coupled with the increased penetration of phones and affordability of data has given further impetus to the digital growth agenda.
Addressing the drivers of the tectonically shifting brand ecosystem, The Advertising Club has announced the debut edition of its India Digital Review – D-CODE.
A refreshing new format where 13 Industry champions do a show and tell for 10 minutes each about:
1. One piece of work that they are proud of
2. One piece of work another brand has done that inspires them
3. Three pieces of advice for marketers for winning in digital
The stalwarts speaking at the review include:
1. Agnello Dias, Chairman & Co-Founder, Taproot
2. Ajit Mohan, CEO, Hotstar
3. Anupriya Acharya, CEO, Publicis Media
4. Anuradha Aggarwal, CMO, Marico
5. ArunIyer, Chairman & CCO, Lowe Lintas
6. Juhi Kalia, Head of Creative Shop – India & Indonesia, Facebook
7. Rahul Johri, CEO, BCCI
8. Ravi Desai, Marketing Director, Amazon
9. Sam Singh, CEO – South Asia, GroupM
10. Sapna Chadha, Marketing Director – India & SEA, Google
11. Shoumyan Biswas, Vice President, Marketing, Flipkart
12. Siddharth Banerjee, EVP Marketing, Vodafone
13. Tanmay Bhat, Co-Founder, AIB
The review will be moderated by industry veteran and President, The Advertising Club – Vikram Sakhuja.
Speaking about the maiden edition of the review Vikram Sakhuja, Group CEO, media and OOH, Madison Communications & President, The Advertising Club said “Brands are today operating in a globally competitive landscape making it imperative to ensure clutter breaking conversation and presence across dynamic digital mediums. With knowledge platforms like the Digital review, The Advertising Club endeavours to create awareness, facilitate ideas exchange and enable the Indian media and advertising fraternity to stay ahead of the curve on digital innovation and engagement. “
Speaking about the need for a Digital Review, Aditya Swamy, Head, Agency Partnerships at Google & Managing Committee member, The Advertising Club said “It’s exciting to create a forum where the best can inspire and be inspired themselves to unleash the power of digital. With advertisers, publishers and agency leaders speaking, we will have a very real look into the many faces of the digital eco system ‘
Punitha Arumugam, Platform Evangelist – Hotstar and Managing Committee member, The Advertising Club added “In shaping this Annual Digital Review, we at the AdClub were focused on ensuring the maximum possible learning for the audience in the shortest time. With 13 diverse industry leaders, each presenting 2 best of class examples and 3 learnings on using digital, the audience will see 26 break-through digital work done in India and get 39 tips for the year ahead. And all this in 150 minutes! We hope that this annual review will become the best learning ground for everything digital in India.”
The Digital Review 2018 will reflect on the work presented by brands across digital platforms from April 2017-June 2018. The Review is slated to be presented on 1st August, 2018, 5.30pm onward @Taj Lands’ End, Mumbai
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.
