Ad Campaigns
Pepe Jeans launches India centric ad with Siddharth Malhotra
MUMBAI: Ever since it stepped foot on Indian soil, Pepe Jeans has been a popular choice among youngsters looking for denim. Founded in 1973 in London by three Indian brothers (Arun, Nitin and Milan Shah), the brand today has its footprints across the globe.
India is among the top three countries globally for Pepe in terms of business along with Spain and Germany. When Kavindra Mishra joined Pepe Jeans in 2013 as MD, the company’s net sales stood at a mere Rs 180 crore but with his marketing and strategic expertise, Pepe has grown exponentially and its net sales as of 2017 stood at an astounding Rs 1000 crore.
Now, Pepe Jeans has signed Bollywood actor Siddharth Malhotra as its first ever Indian brand ambassador. The brand has created an India centric campaign with the actor called, Spring Summer 18 campaign #MadeToCreate. The campaign is all about acting on your passion to create art and bring to life something remarkable that is driven by creative expression.
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The thought behind launching India’s first campaign for Pepe is in sync with the brand’s gaining popularity among youth and adults. Created by Pepe Jeans’ in-house team in collaboration with the company’s global agency Spring Studios, the campaign idea was planned around eight to nine months ago.
The brand that traditionally resorts to print/magazine and OOH for its marketing has created three digital movies to connect with gen-Y. Mishra says, “We haven’t done much advertising and marketing so far but that will change with this new campaign.” The brand will be ignoring TV as its core TG is always on digital and hence the brand will double its investment on digital platforms, in-cinema and OOH. Pepe will also conduct mall activations and tie ups with metro stations to advertise the new campaign.
The denim manufacturer will roll out another campaign in the second half of 2018, with Polish model Hanna Juzon.
Malhotra joins a star-studded global line-up including Ashton Kutcher, Cristiano Ronaldo, Kate Moss, Sienna Miller and Cara Delevinge, all of whom have modelled for Pepe Jeans over the years.
Although wearing jeans that cost approximately Rs 2000-4000 can be considered an urban phenomenon, that seems to be changing as with increasing digitisation, people in rural areas don’t mind spending some extra bucks to look ‘fashionable’. Mishra thanks e-commerce as because of the ease in online shopping and digitisation, people in smaller towns now understand fashion equally.
Mishra plans to open 35-40 stores every year and 2018 will be no less for the brand. He believes that in today’s competitive market, brands need to provide reason for a shopper to shop with them. In the apparel business, the way your store looks is equally important as the store is your marketing base.
Pepe Jeans India is also entering the innerwear segment. It has formed a 50:50 joint venture (JV) with Kolkata-based hosiery major Dollar Industries for the manufacture and marketing of premium innerwear. Called Pepe Jeans Inner Fashions, the JV entity will make innerwear, lounge wear, gym wear, sleepwear and tracksuits targeting the premium segment.
The company will launch its first line of autumn-winter collection in July or August 2018.
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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.
