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Lodestar UM introduces Tata Hexa with carpool karaoke
MUMBAI: Introducing Tata Motors’ flagship brand Hexa, Lodestar UM, part of media agency conglomerate IPG Mediabrands, has created India’s first carpool karaoke with the star cast of the upcoming Bollywood blockbuster Rock on 2.
Lodestar UM Studios – the content division of the agency proposed the idea of doing India’s first car pool karaoke. The swanky new Hexa was rigged with 12 cameras to capture all angles of the fun and excitement within. The track was loaded on Hexa’s hi-end infotainment system equipped with 10 JBL speakers and what followed was an awesome experience.
The stars drove around Bandra, they jammed, playing drums and air guitars, doing a high energy karaoke on their famous title track. The ride ended with them jamming and driving to the trailer launch event of Rock On 2 at the amphitheater in Bandra.
On this innovative initiative Lodestar UM CEO Nandini Dias said, “This is a true example of a unique collaborative innovation by team Lodestar, where two big brands getting launched in November were brought together on the universally loved Music platform.
Commenting on the association, Tata Motors marketing head — PVBU Vivek B Srivastava said, “Our association with Excel Entertainment for Rock on 2 reiterates our customer centric approach towards our much awaited power-packed, feature loaded and adrenaline pumped lifestyle vehicle, the Tata Hexa.”
“Rock On 2 is representative of the youth of the country that is passionate about music and motoring and thus it’s an ideal fit for Tata Hexa”, said Lodestar UM SVP Deepak Netram.
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.
