Ad Campaigns
Leo Burnett’s Bajaj V ad tops YouTube Ads Leaderboard
MUMBAI: Apart from the frequency of ad spots on television, their viewership on social media speaks tons about the mileage of a brand’s campaign. In today’s digital era, if an ad hasn’t been shared a few thousand times on Facebook and Twitter with hashtags to boot, chances are the brand’s spraying and praying on television didn’t work much. Thus a brand’s Youtube channel is a key touch of its marketing initiatives.
Google has come out with a list of ads and promoted videos that the Indian audiences have liked the most in the first six months of the year. Calling it YouTube Ads Leaderboard, the list features the most engaging ads that people chose to watch, the ten ads clocked an astounding four lakh hours of watchtime, with over 60 percent happening on mobile devices.
The first one the list is really a no-brainer considering its general reception by netizens and media at the time of release. Bajaj V, conceptualised and executed by Leo Burnett India for Bajaj’s flagship motorbike ‘V’ for Vikrant. The ad film as well as the subsequent Bajaj sponsored documentary ‘Sons of Vikrant’ took Indian social media by a storm by touching everyone with a nationalistic pride. The Bajaj V film also won the agency a Bronze Lion in the Promo & Activation category under Cars & Automotive Product & Services category. Talking about the campaign, Soumya Das, DGM (Marketing), Bajaj Auto said, “The genesis of Bajaj V came from our passion to keep alive the legacy of the invincible INS Vikrant in the form of a bike that lakhs of Indians can ride with pride. We’re extremely happy to know that the entire nation appreciates what we did. Youtube as a platform, with its targeting capabilities has helped us to connect with our TG more efficiently and made this campaign a bigger success.”
The other ad on the YouTube Leaderboard that has been recognised at Cannes this year is the tenth on the list Ariel ad for which BBDO India was awarded a Bronze Lion in the Creative Effectiveness category.
Amazon India’s ‘Apni Dukan’ created by the same agency is featured second on the list, followed by BefikarBookkar by Make My Trip. Among all the ten featured advertisements enlisted by Google, the common thread is the storytelling element. Six of the ten ads infact were released in the long format structure running far longer than the typical 60-second television commercial. Further, based on the average watchtime per ad, it is clear that customers are willing to invest their time and attention on advertising that is narrative-driven and takes audiences along on a journey. Bajaj, Hitachi, Royal Challenge Sports Drink and Ariel have taken this approach, and captured people’s attention.
Here is the list in full:
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.
