Ad Campaigns
NDTV’s Indianroots.com adopts new marketing mantra to target tier II & III cities
MUMBAI: At a time when every e-retail venture is shouting from rooftops about multiple discounts, exclusive offers and cashbacks, NDTV Ethnic Retail’s venture Indianroots.com has come up with a TVC showcasing their style and range.
In a bid to target consumers in Tier II and III cities, the e-retail venture, which offers a range of Indian ethnic wear along with antique showpieces, has rolled out a nationwide campaign called ‘Inherently Indian,’ which will have presence on TV, outdoor and digital.
The ‘Inherently Indian’ TVC, which was launched on 15 August, 2015 has already started appearing across NDTV channels and will also have presence on digital platforms. The brand strategy was conceptualised and created by Brandmovers India.
Speaking to Indiantelevision.com, NDTV Ethnic Retail CEO Rahul Narvekar says, “We are currently mulling on whether we should put the TVC on other channels too. The ad brief had two major parts. Firstly, we wanted to depict our Indianess and the wide range of products. And secondly we wanted to break the clutter. That’s the reason why we have not mentioned anything about discounts and pricing anywhere in the ad.”
Narvekar is happy with the response that the Soumik Sen directed TVC has garnered so far. “We have been trending on Facebook. We got calls from veteran Bollywood stars and other dignitaries praising the TVC and hence I am very delighted with the response.”
Indianroots has recently raised additional funding for its expansion plans. “We want to be market leader when it comes to ethnic wear. In the last financial year, we garnered top line sale of Rs 61 crore and this year we want to grow further.”
Narvekar added, “The new TVC will help establish our positioning around the idea of “Inherently Indian” in a visual manner and will beautifully blend fashion and story-telling, while highlighting typical quirks of our country. IndianRoots is a firm believer in Make In India and our TVC conveys the uniqueness and immense potential in this message. With this commercial, we aim to capture the attention and increase the recall value of Indianroots within the Tier II and III customer base of our country.”
NDTV Ethnic Retail marketing head Paroma Sen said, “Indianroots has come a long way in the last two years, building up a strong foundation and business within and outside India. Coming in before the kickoff of India’s festive season this year, the TVC explores the moods and sentiments that every Indian will identify with. This TVC will help Indianroots build awareness in growing markets, and help us connect with our customers at a very human and emotional level.”
Brandmovers India co-founder & managing director Suvajyoti Ghosh added, “Agencies, in general, do not rope in Bollywood directors to direct a TV spot, but in this case, we wanted Soumik’s unique story-telling vision to come through and create great cinematic quality. To keep it real, we avoided casting the typical model figure, and instead chose to portray the real, modern woman, with a distinct candour.”
“The TVC is marked by a languorous verse narrative in Hindi written in-house and is centred around the concept of identity and beauty and how little Indian things are embraced everyday through the attires worn by women,” added Ghosh.
Sen said, “Indian fashion is evolving and Indianroots is one of the harbinger of this revolution in Indian wear. The portal has always reinforced the notion that Indian fashion can also be stylish and modern hence, we wanted to create a commercial that talked about modern women embracing ethnicity. The modern Indian woman is someone who embraces her traditional roots with elan, and wears it every day. Capturing this on film implied making tradition chic and urbane, and bringing out her inner beauty. This was challenging, but it was a fun, monsoon shoot.”
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.
