Ad Campaigns
Saregama makes digital audio players cool again
MUMBAI: There is nothing that moves India like music and when it comes to music, who would disagree that songs from the 50s, 60s, 70s, and even the 80s have touched India like few other things have. Several generations have grown up on singers like Rafi, Lata, Mukesh, Kishore, Sahir, Majrooh, RD, and they became such a part of our lives that they are referred to by their first names. And yet, today, we struggle to get access to their songs. The 40+ Indian living in smaller towns today is not very comfortable with the contemporary music media – be it smartphones, memory sticks, or download options.
Saregama has launched its first ever digital and TV film for its hot new product – a portable digital audio player with in-built stereo speakers and 5000 evergreen Hindi songs inside called Saregama Carvaan.
Saregama wanted to capture and portray the depth of emotions and the role that music, and by its extension Carvaan can play in people’s lives. Ad agency The Womb wanted to stay away from the casual, the flippant, or the superficially happy-clappy world of gifting advertising.
The film showcases the couple as they move through life and how a song is an integral part of their relationship. It is the husband’s stress buster, it is his solace, his happiness and joy. It is also his ‘lori’! Until one day, the wife passes away and the song ceases to exist. The son has observed the song, its role in the relationship of his parents and how troubled is his father. He brings along Carvaan as a gift which may never replace the mother but most surely can bring the song and associated memories back to life.
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.
