Ad Campaigns
Kumar Varun rants about WFH in Man Matters’ #LetsTalkMan campaign
Mumbai: Work from home (WFH) was perhaps the most common outcome worldwide for offices amid a coronavirus-ridden world. We went from being paranoid about Covid-19 and its impact on health to normalising it. Now, with the world battling another wave of the pandemic, Man Matters – a digital health platform for men, has come up with a very relatable rant video featuring actor, stand-up comedian Kumar Varun that voices the sentiments of employees who are bound to work despite being covid positive.
The campaign is the latest to come out from the brand’s initiative #LetsTalkMan, which was first launched on International Men’s Day 2021.
The digital film executed by Spring Marketing Capital portrays Varun as the protagonist encapsulating the emotional turbulence of employees who have been Covid positive in the third wave and yet, are not spared from expectations of work.
The film begins with an online conference call, wishing employees speedy recovery and asking each other to take care of themselves. Cut to reality, in the name of deadlines, employees continue to work from home and are expected to work and complete work as before. The rant aims to throw light on the reality that while the current wave is mild and most of us who are vaccinated will recover fast, it is equally important to be cognisant of the fact that it still impacts our health and wellbeing, and that of our near and dear ones.
“From being paranoid about Covid during the first and second wave, to now witnessing a ‘normal’ third wave, we have seen a significant shift in our attitude towards Covid-19,” said director of brand marketing Anuroop Nair, commenting on the campaign message. “At Man Matters, we believe in helping men open about their health & wellness needs and hence really felt like making this video to help those who are unable to in this period.”
“Man Matters as a brand has always pushed the boundaries on how we should open up about how we feel. In Jan ’22, I think most of us feel this way but someone needed to say this and hence we finally did through this piece,” remarked Spring Marketing Capital branded content partner Sandeep Balan.
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.
