Ad Campaigns
McDowell’s No. 1 launches #No1YaariCheers campaign to unite IPL fans
Mumbai: McDowell’s No. 1 has launched a cheerful campaign #No1YaariCheers that intends to unite IPL fans and create delightful Yaari moments. It will add a fun and energetic twist to the regular cricket viewing experience.
The campaign conceptualized by DDB Mudra, features IPL players such as Virat Kohli from Royal Challengers Bangalore, Yuzvendra Chahal from Rajasthan Royals, Kieron Pollard from Mumbai Indians and many more, to bring alive the stadium action on the screen.
Speaking about this association Diageo India’s executive vice president and portfolio head, marketing Ruchira Jaitly, said, “Cricket is a sporting extravaganza that brings the entire country together with inspiring sporting action that’s a feast for Indians across the length and breadth of the country. So naturally, we are delighted to be associated with these 6 iconic teams.”
“Moreover, this cricket season is the perfect platform to bring alive the special moments when yaars connect and make magic happen, whether while playing or while watching this tournament. To further add to the fun and entertainment, we are excited to give fans a chance to cheer for their teams with inspiring and playful language like never before. McDowell’s No.1 Soda is proud to share the spirit of Yaari with these amazing teams and build a meaningful new partnership,” he added
Commenting on the campaign, DDB Mudra’s executive creative director- west Neeraj Kanitkar said, “No.1 Yaari, six of the biggest IPL teams and 18 superstars deserve a grand platform. #No1YaariCheers is just that. A new language of Yaari that fuses what yaars do – from showing support to inspiring to teasing to provoking to badgering and everything in between – support, inspire, tease, provoke, badger – with the language of cricket. With the cricketers not having so much activity but simply expressing their Yaari for each other, they brought their style to the cheering/chanting. Making for entertaining shoots and an exuberant bunch of films.”
DDB Mudra executive vice president and business partner Sujay Ghosh added, “Chants (Cheers) connect people and help form stronger bonds with their group of friends and fans. We took this insight and developed a campaign which can play a role in culture during this cricket season. McDowell’s No. 1 has always stood for bonds of friendship. And cheers have always brought fans together and made their fandoms epic, we mounted our idea based on these two inputs and created a new language for fans and friends to enhance the engagement and celebration for this cricket season across languages and regions.”
The campaign is currently live across digital platforms such as Disney+Hotstar, YouTube, mCanvas, Facebook and Twitter.
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.
