Ad Campaigns
Nivea Purna and Zee Kannada champion a cultural shift in self-care
MUMBAI: Nivea India has teamed up with Zee Kannada to launch Nivea Purna – Self-Care is Complete Care, a campaign that transforms body lotion marketing into a movement celebrating women’s well-being and empowerment.
The campaign struck a deeply emotional chord by integrating beloved TV characters Seetha (Vaishnavi Gowda) and Shravani (Asiya Firdouse) into its narrative. These fan-favourite figures helped deliver the message authentically, positioning self-care as an achievable and essential part of women’s daily lives.
By partnering with Zee Kannada and its digital extension Zee5, the campaign embedded itself into the cultural heartbeat of Karnataka. It brought the self-care conversation into living rooms through content that women already trust and connect with.
The activation gained further momentum with the Nivea Purna Contest, which encouraged women across Karnataka to share personal stories of self-care. What started as a call to action quickly evolved into a community-driven movement, amplified by genuine engagement on social media.
The campaign reached its crescendo at the Zee Entertainers event, celebrating participants and spotlighting women’s wellness through engaging activities such as rapid-fire rounds, meet-and-greets, and a felicitation ceremony. It was more than an awards night-it was a vibrant community celebration that solidified the emotional link between the brand and its audience.
“This campaign wasn’t about marketing a product; it was about being part of a larger movement,” the brand stated, underscoring the campaign’s broader purpose and impact on brand sentiment and market performance.
“Nivea Purna was more than a campaign-it was a movement to make self-care essential, not optional. Partnering with Zee Kannada helped us connect deeply with women in Karnataka, bringing this message to life in a culturally relevant way. The overwhelming response inspires us to keep driving meaningful conversations that empower women to prioritise their well-being every day.”
Nivea India marketing director Shweta Dalal “Nivea Purna highlights how brands that authentically connect with their audience-through storytelling, inclusivity, and cultural relevance-can drive lasting changes in perception while achieving tangible business results.”
OMD India associate vice-president Tanushree Chakraborty “This collaboration exemplifies our commitment to delivering impactful brand solutions by leveraging Zee’s vast network and strengths to seamlessly amplify brand stories across multiple touchpoints and drive maximum impact on brand equity. As the undisputed leader in the Kannada market, our channel and content enjoy a cult following, enabling us to craft authentic, high-engagement brand campaigns. With Zee’s beloved characters, who share a deep emotional bond with audiences, we provide the perfect platform to spark meaningful brand conversations in millions of homes. A big kudos to the entire team, with a special mention to Nivea and the OMD team, who partnered with us to make this campaign a resounding success. We remain committed to setting new benchmarks with more such innovative and high-impact brand collaborations.”
Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd. chief growth officer Ashish Sehgal, Through Nivea Purna, the brand didn’t just promote a product-it created a movement rooted in cultural relevance, emotional connection, and 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.
