Ad Campaigns
Savour McDonald’s falling fries in this new AR Instagram Game
NEW DELHI: In the era of social distancing, virtual interactions have taken a new shape and form to connect with each other. Providing a perfect solution to the lockdown woes, McDonald’s India North & East in partnership with Swiggy has launched an exciting AR game filter ‘Fries Down Challenge’ on Instagram that allows netizens to savour their favourite McDonald’s fries virtually. Adding to the excitement, users with maximum score will stand a chance to win exciting McDonald’s vouchers that can be redeemed on Swiggy*.
To try their hands on the most rewarding Instagram filter, users would need to select the filter from Swiggy’s Instagram page filters section or can search the “Fries Down Challenge” filter from the effects list in Instagram camera. Once they select the filter, tap to play, French fries will begin falling from the top of the screen and the tally will appear over the user’s head. Users will then have to catch the falling fries by opening their mouth to eat them. After the game, the AR filter will record the final score.
Created by Nilgiri Social, the AR story filter has already taken Instagram enthusiasts such as Kusha Kapila, Heli Daruwala and others into a frenzy as they tried the filters and shared their score.
The launch of the AR game by McDonald’s comes close on the heels of #FryItUpFridays – an exclusive, Friday-specific deal on the McDonald’s World Famous Fries. As part of this irresistible offer, anyone who places a McDelivery order via Swiggy, of/above a total of INR 350 (exclusive of delivery charge & taxes) on Fridays, gets a pack of medium fries free.
*Challenge available from 10 am to 8 pm on 14 August 2020 only
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.
