Ad Campaigns
Royal Challenge Sports Drink launches #ChallengeAccepted campaign
MUMBAI: Royal Challenge Sports Drink has launched #ChallengeAccepted, a campaign that challenges gender-based stereotypes in cricket and spotlights a world of equality that will lead to a better tomorrow both on and off the field. The campaign has been conceptualised by DDB Mudra Group.
In the film, Mithali Raj, Harmanpreet Kaur, Veda Krishnamurthy from the Indian women cricket team come together with Virat Kohli, the men’s cricket team player, to say that ‘A day is coming where the world needs to become equal’ and urges fans to accept the challenge to break the barriers in their mind and to see men and women’s cricket as one game and one team which is not divided by gender.
The campaign is also people to support the first-ever mixed gender T20 match that the brand will organise with women cricketers and the Royal Challengers Bangalore team.
Talking about the campaign, DDB Mudra South creative head Vishnu Srivastav said, “Royal Challenge as a brand has always stood for forward thinking and boldness. It has stood for the spirit of challenging the ‘now’. So, when it came to this campaign, with the euphoria linked to the cricket season we wanted to talk about what’s missing in all this excitement – Women Cricketers. We wanted to create a campaign that challenges the world to move towards a more progressive and inclusive space for women, in sports and life. And we’re just getting started.”
Diageo India executive vice president and portfolio head Amarpreet Anand noted, “With #ChallengeAccepted, the idea is to challenge stereotypes in life, because the bold are the ones who are fearless to do so. Our first point of view is to challenge gender stereotypes in cricket, where the game is being divided by gender & not skills & prowess. We believe that it’s a cause worthy of a conversation in culture & we are supporting the first mixed gender match with international cricketers. We are rolling out a full 360-degree activation plan supported by like-minded influencers and the RCB cricket team.”
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.
