Ad Campaigns
Muscleblaze celebrates ‘never-say-die’ attitude in latest campaign
MUMBAI: We are a culture that has always placed a premium on intellectual pursuits rather than athletic ones. In this culture, fitness and sports enthusiasts have always been considered unusual, sometimes even aberrations. With their passion often misunderstood and commitment questioned by everyone around them, it is hard to imagine the source of their unbreakable determination. Their passion demands of them a tough disciplined life and a lifestyle that cannot be compromised with, particularly the nutritional aspect.
By leveraging these rich insights straight from the lives of fitness and sports enthusiasts, MuscleBlaze celebrates their spirit and ‘never-say-die’ attitude and supplements their efforts by catering to their distinct nutritional requirement.
The hard-hitting digital campaign – Ziddi Hoon Main – created by the DDB Mudra Group, positions MuscleBlaze as the expert that not only provides enthusiasts with their dietary requirements but also understands their life and challenges. The brand understands that the force that drives fitness enthusiasts to go against the grain every single day in pursuit of their passion, is their own indomitable spirit.
The visuals are shot in dingy gyms, hard and unforgiving play arenas, both indoors and outdoors, where these fitness enthusiasts sweat silently without giving in to the questions hurled at them. What stands out in the film is not only the challenges that it portrays but also the diversity of people who identify as fitness enthusiasts. There are prevalent biases against women, senior individuals, differently-abled individuals when it comes to athleticism and the film highlights these biases as well. At the end, it is a celebration of the victory of passionate and adamant individuals and their unbending will against all odds.
With a staggering response on digital, the film has garnered 1.4 million views on Facebook and half a million on YouTube and Instagram, well within the first three days of its release.
Muscleblaze CEO and founder Sameer Maheshwari says, “Muscleblaze is committed to connect and communicate meaningfully with fitness enthusiasts. We believe “Zidd” as a concept will strike an instant chord with fitness consumers and strengthen Muscleblaze position as a leading sports nutrition brand in India.”
Muscleblaze business head Amit Tandon mentions, “This campaign is a step ahead in our endeavour to establish Muscleblaze as a brand that truly understands fitness consumers. Every fitness enthusiast is stubborn to an extent to achieve his fitness goals and Ziddi Hoon Main brings out this insight via a stylised and classily crafted AV.”
“The brand team had just come off a huge hit with ‘tum nahin samjhoge’. The benchmark had been set. But more importantly we felt that it was time to lay down a platform that can be ownable and on which we could build the brand. Zidd, is that platform and we believe is easily extendable to both internal as well as external audiences,” adds DDB Mudra Group chief creative technologist Brijesh Jacob.
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.
