Ad Campaigns
Pond’s Cold Cream celebrates the magic of a ‘jhappi’
MUMBAI: Pond’s Cold Cream has unveiled its brand campaign that leverages its legacy of trusted care. The TVC celebrates the magic of a ‘jhappi’. In Indian parlance, ‘jhappi’ means much more than a simple hug. It’s the embrace and protection that only a loved one can provide. Similarly, Pond’s Cold Cream provides the embrace of protection to the skin through its 10 essential nutrients and moisturisers.
The objective of the campaign is to further evoke the emotional affinity the brand has enjoyed over decades in the market, instilling freshness to the idea of touchable, soft skin. The tone of the film is consciously positive and poetic. The moments between the mother, daughter and granddaughter cue protection and care through generations. In essence, it is exactly what the product does too.
Ogilvy executive creative director Zenobia Pithawalla says, “The idea ‘Pond’s ki jhappi’ came from the core of the brand. ‘Jhappi’ meaning a hug, not only conveys the expert care and protection that the product provides in winter but also builds on the legacy of the brand. And ‘jhappis’ too, like Pond’s Cold Cream, are passed on from generation to generation.”
Hindustan Unilever Ltd vice president, skincare and colours Prabha Narasimhan adds, “The idea of mothers receiving and passing on their love & care from one generation to the next – aap ko mila tohi aap ne diya Pond’s ka laad pyar perfectly reflecting the ethos of the brand and the Indian woman.”
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.
