Ad Campaigns
Kolkata campaigns for ‘Tobacco-Free World’
KOLKATA: To carry forward the campaign for a tobacco-free world, the US-based Bloomberg Initiative (BI) and The International Union against Tuberculosis and Lung Disease came together to host a meet in the city of joy.
Popular state icons like singer Lopamudra Mitra, sports personality Dibyendu Barua, cricketer Shreevats Goswami and others chipped in the new initiative, which was spearheaded locally by the NGO – Manbhum Ananda Ashram Nityananda Trust (MANT).
“Every person should be able to breathe smoke free air. Smoke-free environment protects the health of non-smokers, who are otherwise reduced to passive smokers. I am happy to be a part of the Alliance for Tobacco Free West Bengal initiative to increase public awareness,” Barua, the chess wizard said.
The Bloomberg Initiative Grants Program was started in 2006 to support projects that develop and deliver high-impact, evidence-based tobacco control interventions. The BI Grants Program provides funding to government ministries and agencies, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), civil society organizations, and universities in more than 60 countries.
Tobacco kills more than 14,000 people every day and experts are of the view that deaths are increasing every day. Unless urgent action is taken, tobacco will kill eight million people a year by 2030, 80 per cent of them in developing countries.
To address this global public health crisis, Michael R. Bloomberg, philanthropist and mayor of New York City, launched a global initiative to fight tobacco use in low- and middle-income countries, where more than two-thirds of the world’s smokers live.
Leading experts call for a global campaign to create a tobacco-free world by 2040.
“A world where tobacco is out of sight, out of mind, and out of fashion – yet not prohibited – is achievable in less than three decades from now, but only with full commitment from governments, international agencies, such as UN and World Health Organisation, and civil society,” experts opined.
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.
