Ad Campaigns
Parle mandates Taproot Dentsu to change communication for Milano
MUMBAI: Parle is ensuring that the growing frenzy behind wellness items does not dim the interest of people in its classic biscuit Milano. It appointed Taproot Dentsu to pick up pace for the brand and enable it to reclaim lost ground.
The brief was to shed the earlier idea of sinful, indulgent consumption that was labelled to this group of cookies. Taproot Dentsu had to make it relevant but light hearted as well.
Speaking about the campaign, Parle Products category head Mayank Shah said, “Since the launch of the Platina range last May, we have observed a renewed interest among consumers towards Parle’s premium offerings. We have always been innovators across categories and while we were happy that our premium brands were being well received, we also felt the need to bring something refreshingly new to the consumers. Extensive research and understanding of our target audience’s evolving tastes led us to add new variants to the Milano range, which consequently resulted in India’s first cookie with Hazelnut filling by an FMCG brand.”
Taproot Dentsu Mumbai GM Ayesha Ghosh said, “In times where balance and perfection are being chased and when indulgence is frowned upon, our task was to carve out a special guilt-free place in the minds of consumers for a rich, delicious cookie like Milano. The idea that followed was to approach it from an individual’s perspective, bringing out the importance of irreverent self-pampering. The fact that Twinkle Khanna personally identified with the messaging, further spurred off the idea for us to also add the element of ‘There’s a me in every Milano’ in the TVCs. Overall, the ads have been shot in a manner to remind us that every now and then, it’s okay to listen to your heart, give in to a craving and bite into that tempting cookie!”
Taproot Dentsu Mumbai, executive creative director Pallavi Chakravarti said, “Twinkle is the perfect spokesperson for Milano. She doesn’t take herself too seriously, she’s her own person, which is evident from the career and life choices she has made. Milano, while maintaining the `category codes’ of a premium cookie is evolving the same codes with a playful dig at rigid dietary fads that can suck the joy out of life. With this film, we want to tell people that it’s absolutely fine to give in to the indulgence of a delicious Milano every now and then.”
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.
