Ad Campaigns
Pulse Candy rolls out AI-powered tribute to Rath Yatra with ‘Pulse of India’ campaign
MUMBAI: Pulse Candy, the tongue-tingling treat from the house of DS Group, has unwrapped another tech-led cultural offering — this time paying homage to one of India’s most iconic festivals. With ‘Jagannath Rath Yatra – The Pulse of India’, the brand launches an AI-crafted campaign that brings alive the devotion, mythology, and massive spectacle of the sacred Puri chariot festival.
Running from 25 June to 2 July across Meta, YouTube, and X, the campaign’s centrepiece is a richly visualised film that reimagines the celestial tale of Lord Krishna’s transformation into Lord Jagannath and the mystique of Daru Brahma. The AI-powered storytelling gives the centuries-old spiritual saga a contemporary, cinematic sheen — perfect for today’s scroll-happy viewer.
The build-up includes a “Did You Know?” trivia blitz across platforms, serving up festival nuggets and mythological morsels to spark curiosity and cultural chatter.
This campaign follows the brand’s previous AI-led forays into Mahakumbh and Ganesh Chaturthi, cementing Pulse’s position as more than just a candy — but a curator of India’s cultural soul.
Speaking about the campaign, DS Group senior general manager, marketing, confectionery, Arvind Kumar said, “Pulse is more than just a candy. It is a reflection of India’s culture and spirit. Through this campaign, DS Group’s Pulse Candy is not only honouring the cultural heartbeat of Odisha but also bringing it alive for a new generation through the power of AI storytelling. The Rath Yatra is a traditional spectacle and we’re proud to be celebrating it in a way that connects tradition with technology.”
Launched in 2015, Pulse has ruled the hard-boiled candy category for nearly a decade. And with every marketing innovation, it proves it knows not just what tickles the tongue — but also what moves the heart.
From flavour bombs to festival feels, Pulse continues to be, quite literally, the Pulse of India.
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.
