Ad Campaigns
Shaurya Sharma tunes Into Zee TV as new marketing head
MUMBAI: From hyperlocal deliveries to high-decibel dramas, Shaurya Sharma is making a channel change that’s set to shake things up. The marketing maven has officially joined Zee Entertainment Enterprises Ltd as head of marketing for Zee TV (vice president for marketing), bringing with him a powerhouse portfolio that spans Disney-Star, Sun TV Network, Pernod Ricard, and more. With this move, Sharma takes charge of one of India’s most iconic general entertainment channels at a time when content consumption and audience loyalty is shifting faster than TRP charts.
Armed with more than a decade of cross-category experience from liquor to logistics to linear TV Sharma’s trajectory is defined by versatility and results. Most recently, he served as Cluster marketing head for Sun Neo, Sun Marathi, and Sun Bangla at Sun TV Network, leading communication planning, social media strategy, and content marketing across diverse audience bases.
Prior to that, he helmed marketing at Shadowfax, where he not only curated the brand’s voice but also launched India’s first ad-film on delivery jobs featuring Aparshakti Khurana and Supriya Shukla, reducing CPO by 15 per cent with his loyalty-building initiatives.
His Disney-Star stint was equally action-packed, leading digital marketing for brands like Star Bharat and managing subscription strategy for the network’s vast distribution footprint.
From boosting NPS scores in hyperlocal delivery to driving channel loyalty in competitive regional markets, Sharma’s work reflects a razor-sharp focus on brand resonance and consumer behaviour, both essentials in the ever-evolving GEC space.
With Zee Tv now under his marketing stewardship, the small screen is likely to see big moves. And if history is any clue, Sharma’s campaigns won’t just sell shows, they’ll start conversations.
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.
