Ad Campaigns
Nihar Naturals celebrates progressive, strong women
MUMBAI: Women today are free-spirited, courageous and strong, irrespective of their age and economic backgrounds. Nihar Naturals coconut hair oil, a market leader in eastern India, has unveiled its latest campaign, “Akai Aiksho” to highlight the power and strength of the modern woman. The brand caters to progressive Indian women and has always celebrated their innate strengths and successes through all its communication.
The campaign is a colloquial Bangla phrase which means “One is equal to hundred” and is aptly captured in the TVC through the spirit of modern Indian women who are independent, powerful and self-sufficient. Nihar Naturals has always championed a progressive and modern depiction of women and continues to do so through this new campaign conceptualised and created by BBH India. It features Nihar Naturals’ long-term brand ambassador, Vidya Balan and drives a strong message celebrating the essence of womanhood.
The TVC depicts stories of three women demonstrating strength in their daily lives – the strength to achieve, to show compassion and nurture and the strength to protect. It celebrates women through a symbolic manifestation of Goddess Durga, who is hailed for her virtues beyond the realms of religion, social or economic divide. Nihar Naturals embodies this same spirit of Akai Aiksho.
Marico chief marketing officer Anuradha Aggarwal says, “Over the years, Nihar Naturals through its campaigns has aimed to break all stereotypes against women and celebrated their courage and strength. Through this new campaign, the brand builds on this core belief to say that every woman is Akai Aiksho – She alone is enough to handle all the vicissitudes in life. Nihar Naturals a nourishing coconut hair oil enriched with the goodness of methi, promises strong hair for this strong woman of today.”
BBH creative director of art Shruti Das adds, “Women have always had the inner strength that makes them capable of doing anything. The idea is brought alive through small stories of strength displayed by women in their everyday lives and through the visual symbolism of these regular women juxtaposed as an avatar of Goddess Durga, the epitome of strength in a woman. Even the music is created using a contemporary rendition of a famous Durga chant, thus leaving the woman with a feeling of empowerment.”
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.
