Ad Campaigns
NDTV and Diageo launches second season of Road to Safety campaign
MUMBAI: After a successful launch, United Spirits-NDTV Road to Safety, a Diageo initiative returns in its second year to address one of the biggest concerns for the Indian government and society today the appalling state of road safety in our country. Last year, to make India’s roads safer, a 7-point road safety agenda was presented to the government. The agenda covered a lot of aspects ranging from the laws that need amendment to the traffic police force that needs training.
This year too, the campaign attempts to address this issue by encouraging citizens to take a pledge to never drink and drive. As a part of this initiative, in conjunction with the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways a special talk show was hosted with the honorable Minister of road transport and highways Nitin Gadkari at the Gateway of India, Mumbai.
Union Minster for Road Transport & Highways, Nitin Gadkari stressed on the importance of making airbags mandatory in every type of car. It is the primary duty of the government to establish measures to protect the life of people irrespective of caste or creed. He further highlighted the significance of having a scientific process of issuing licenses. 30% of driving licenses are bogus. He promised to open 3000 centers in the country for driving and fitness measurement in order to procure those licenses He also requested people to identify accident prone areas on highways and report them on the government website. There are a total of 726 accident and black spots in the country. The government is investing 11,000 crores to improve the condition of these spots and working in the right direction to make Indian roads safer.
In its second season, United Spirits-NDTV Road to Safety, a Diageo Initiative, a social campaign attempts to make our roads safer and reduce the number of ‘preventable accidents’ by encouraging citizens to demonstrate more responsible behavior behind the wheel. While lack of awareness, bad road designs, poor maintenance of roads is definitely a part of the problem, a majority of the accidents are a result of drunken driving too.
This year, the event was attended by some of the country’s leading experts, policy makers, and NGO’s to highlight local issues, agendas and recommendations for the road ahead.
Speaking about this landmark initiative, United Spirits Ltd. business head luxury vertical and corporate relations Abanti Sankaranarayanan said, “The United Spirits-Diageo ‘Road to Safety’ initiative aims to create the necessary impact to address the abysmal state of road safety in our country. In collaboration with local and national partners – the government, civil society, individuals, families, and the industry; we aim to take Phase-II of the programme to greater heights by encouraging more people to drink responsibly and put safety first.”
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.
