Ad Campaigns
O&M and The Hindu tell politicians to behave
MUMBAI: With the elections just around the corner, The Hindu has launched an extension of its successful Behave campaign.
The camping has been conceptualised by Ogilvy & Mather and focuses on some of the concerns like Corruption, dereliction of duty, bad behaviour and inadequate infrastructure of the young voters.
The campaign boldly poses these questions to the leaders of the country and urges them to behave, for the youth are watching.
Ogilvy South Asia executive chairman and creative director Piyush Pandey said, “With a huge youth population and our ambition to be a shining nation in the world, there is a great need for us older people in positions of responsibility to set a better example for the young. I have closely followed cartoonists who have a very effective way of using satire to shame people. I know that campaigns cannot change behaviour overnight, but I would be very happy if some people are not able to sleep well for a few nights at least.”
This is the next phase of The Hindu’s Behave campaign, which earlier drew attention to politicians’ bad behaviour. This time, it goes a step further, by not just admonishing bad behaviour but reminding politicians that the power to re-elect them undoubtedly lies in the hands of the youth.
It uses dark humour to hold up a mirror to a political leader’s bad behaviour, the print and outdoor campaign uses stark facts to bring the issues that the youth face to the forefront. Eventually, it aims to become a crowd-sourced campaign, by asking people to send in their own questions via social media which will be featured as ads in the paper. Going forward, it hopes to address some of these issues so the youth can make an informed decision when they eventually vote.
The Hindu editor Siddarth Varadharajan said about the campaign: “The Hindu’s ‘Behave Yourself, India” campaign cherishes the spirit of parliamentary debate, which is the true test of a functional democracy. Every Indian has a right to be heard – but that right is only as effective as our ability to listen, engage and disagree courteously with each other. Sadly, the space for tolerance and free speech is narrowing in our republic. This is no surprise because many of our elected representatives – who hold a candle to the rest of society – have failed to debate policy and politics with their peers in Parliament in a civilised manner.”
He added, “Our campaign shines a light on the errant and discourteous politician, wedded to privilege and power, whose fate now lies in the hands of voters, many of whom are young and who will be exercising their franchise for the first time. The idea has been brought alive through print and a television commercial, beautifully executed by Prasoon Pandey of Corcoise Films.”
The campaign will be on TV, cinema, print, outdoor across the country and on social media as well.
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.
