Ad Campaigns
Paytm helps India fight Corona
MUMBAI: Digital payments and financial services platform Paytm has launched the ‘India Fights Corona’ campaign to help prevent and manage the spread of novel coronavirus in communities with the greatest need. In its efforts, Paytm is supported by Lifebuoy, the hygiene brand from Unilever and YouWeCan, a foundation established by Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh. Paytm is appealing to fellow Indians to contribute generously on the Paytm App and help in the distribution of Lifebuoy hygiene products among vulnerable sections of the society.
At the time of writing, the number of confirmed novel coronavirus cases in India has gone up to 132, as per the Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Government of India. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has advised that people should frequently and thoroughly wash hands with soap & water. With this partnership, Paytm and Unilever want to educate everyone on the importance of developing a habit of personal hygiene while avoiding transmission of the virus from one person to another.
Contributions can be made on the Paytm App and Paytm.com website under the 'Donations' section. The amount raised will be used to procure & distribute soaps and hand wash to people who need it the most – including people who are part of our everyday life, such as our house helps, security guards, drivers and vegetable vendors among others. In the first phase, both the companies will distribute 10 lakh soaps and hand washes at no cost in the affected areas. Paytm has also partnered YouWeCan, a foundation established by former Indian cricketer Yuvraj Singh for this noble purpose.
Paytm VP Siddharth Pandey said, "It is an important responsibility for each one of us to teach fellow Indians about the importance of personal hygiene as part of daily routine. We should fight COVID-19 by staying healthy and restricting the spread of the virus to others. We request everyone to contribute towards this cause so that people who are part of our daily lives get access to such important products."
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.
