Ad Campaigns
Just Buy launches marketing campaign targeting shopkeepers
MUMBAI: With an aim to empower retailers, e-distributor Just Buy Live has launched a marketing campaign – Just Buy, Ek App, Ek Awaaz, which highlights the brand’s emotional connect with retailers and the challenges they face.
The campaign began with teaser ads comprising four thematic TVCs centre staging challenges faced by small retailers. The week-long teaser campaign culminated with the reveal of Just Buy Live. The TVCs were launched simultaneously on YouTube.
Just Buy Live’s ATL campaign was conceptualised and executed by Ferry Wharf Communications (FWC).
Just Buy Live chairman and CEO Sahil Sani said, “As the world’s first e-distributor we had to resist the temptation of simply announcing: ‘here’s a revolutionary product’. Instead we took a step back and looked at why we came up with Just Buy.”
“Just Buy was born out exasperation with traditional distribution systems that put the retailer, the Aam Dukandaar, at a disadvantage. Add to it the real threat to the Aam Dukandaar’s business because of the discount-scale model of online retailers, and we have a potent combination of status quo (of distribution) colliding with frustration and uncertainty experienced by the Aam Dukandaar,” Sani elaborated.
Just Buy Live co-founder and managing director Bharat Balachandran added, “For me, Just Buy is not only the world’s first e-distributor. It is a movement, a revolution that will give back the Aam Dukandaar his confidence, financially and emotionally. The only difference between a retailer and us is that everyone only seems to care about us. Us as in you and me, the consumers.”
FWC director Theron Carmine said, “In the process of getting a product from the manufacturer to the customer, the most important point is where the customer actually interacts with the product. That point is the retail store and surprisingly, it is the most neglected link in the chain. The average shopkeeper doesn’t understand the online retail model, valuations, funding etc. and is perplexed by the fact that online businesses are making losses and yet have big bucks to spend on advertising campaigns. He is unable to understand this loss-making business model and wonders why it is the darling of the media and those in power.”
Network Media executive VP Nilesh Patil said, “The challenge was to target a segment that had no available media consumption data; we had to go beyond traditional thinking and market information. That’s where learning’s from past market visits came handy. We planned the media with a combination of data, gut feel and experience. The results are validating the approach, with a substantial number of downloads from the moment the reveal happened on TV.”
“When the only thing you know to earn a living is under threat, you feel trapped. This feeling of entrapment triggers a bunch of emotions. Some look outside for help and hope for a messiah, some explore the possibility of violent protests, while others see a conspiracy against them. On the other hand, when the family earnings suffer, the family suffers too. These very emotions have been captured in the TV commercials in both the teaser and reveal phases,” added FWC creative head Deven Sansare.
“The important emotional aspect that the TV campaign explores is the feeling among retailers that they are pitted against forces much larger than them. It is the classic David versus Goliath scenario that is playing out in the retailers’ minds and on the business front. Just Buy is the Aam Dukandaar’s voice, his awaaz. All we have done is given it a loudspeaker,” voiced Sani.
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.
