Ad Campaigns
Mondelez India lights up village of diya-makers this Diwali
MUMBAI: Festivals form an intrinsic part of the Indian culture. Mondelez India, with its spirited campaigns, colourful packaging and unique product formats has been at the heart of India’s festive spirit for over 70 years.
This year, Mondelez India brings alive the joy of goodness by bringing people together and strengthens relationships with a deep rooted mantra of generosity and making a difference to people’s lives. Just like no festival is complete without celebrations, Diwali cannot be revered in its true sense without illuminating our homes with diyas.
Surchand in Rajasthan is a village famously known as the village of diyamakers, while they have been lighting up our lives for 50 years, they themselves continue to live in darkness; until recently, when Mondelez India decided to install solar panels at their homes, ensuring that Diwali, the festival of lights holds true for every house in Surchand.
Mondelez India director of marketing (Chocolates) Anil Viswanathan says, “Cadbury is a brand built on the founding principle of goodness and generosity. The initiative reminds us of how any act of kindness, however small, can bring joy to people around you, thereby building on our strong proposition of ‘Kuch Achha Ho Jaaye, Kuch Meetha Ho Jaaye’. This Diwali, we hope to celebrate the generosity in everyone, showcasing how such moments go on to strengthen human relationships.”a
"Brand speak is no longer enough. If you really want to be a brand that matters, you have to be a brand that does. Cadbury has always had generosity at its core. So when Diwali came around, we discovered this village that makes diyas for a living, but doesn’t have electricity for most of the day. The irony was obvious. And the solution was too. What if we could light up their lives, the way they light up ours? From there it was only getting it done that was the hard part. And their reactions were totally worth the hard work,” adds Ogilvy & Mather executive creative director Neville Shah.
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.
