Ad Campaigns
Rashmika Mandanna just can’t get enough of the new McSpicy fried chicken
MUMBAI: Your favourite food is sure to be the one thing you just can’t get enough of! With this as the central theme, McDonald’s India (west and south) has launched a campaign with popular film celebrity Rashmika Mandanna to celebrate the deliciousness of McSpicy Fried Chicken.
The brand has forayed into the fried chicken category with the launch of McSpicy Fried Chicken– an offering curated specially to please the palates of chicken loving customers.
As a part of the latest campaign, the brand has launched two quirky, light-hearted TVCs featuring Rashmika Mandanna, who can be seen relishing the all-new McSpicy Fried Chicken with friends and family. The ad films showcase that how even thinking of having anything other than McSpicy Fried Chicken is just a preposterous idea and that no matter how much of it you have, you can never get enough.
Rashmika was recently appointed by McDonald’s as its brand ambassador to further strengthen its connect with millennials in its key markets of Karnataka, Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh and Telangana. The TVCs will be aired exclusively in the south markets in Kannada, Tamil and Telugu and will be adapted for the digital platforms as well. The campaign has been conceptualised by DDB Mudra.
Through this new campaign, the brand aims to create a strong mark in the Indian fried chicken market. The new integrated campaign will have a multi-pronged approach with a media mix of TV, digital and social platforms along with strong in-store visibility, on-ground and OOH activations.
McDonald’s India (west and south) director – marketing & communications Arvind RP says “Our customer research revealed that the customers in South India like their chicken not only to be crunchy but also spicy, and flavourful till the last bite. With McSpicy Fried Chicken, that’s exactly what we have for them. Our aim is that with this great product and Rashmika’s strong appeal, we will grow our market share rapidly in these markets.”
DDB Mudra Group chief creative officer Rahul Mathew added, “The campaign really reflects what the consumer feels about McSpicy Fried Chicken – you keep wanting to go back for more. And just like our chicken, Rashmika is a star that South India can’t get enough of. So, it all came together as the perfect recipe.”
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.
