Ad Campaigns
SUGAR Cosmetics marks seven years of foundation stick with Born To Lead campaign
Mumbai: SUGAR Cosmetics, an omnichannel beauty brand, and a cult favourite amongst Gen Z and Millennial consumers added a vibrant twist to the Holi celebrations in Mumbai. The brand painted the city yellow as the sensational billboards launched its new campaign, “Born to Lead, Not Follow” to celebrate seven years of the launch of India’s highest-selling foundation stick* and the unstoppable spirit of women that SUGAR represents. The campaign features Ace of Face, India’s first foundation stick range –which was launched back in 2017 in 22 inclusive shades from light to deep – the maximum launched by any Indian brand to date.
Since launch, the Ace of Face foundation stick has steadily grown to become SUGAR’s second-highest selling range. The decision to launch shades for such a wide range of skin tones was a message by the brand to not just help in transforming looks but also inspire people to embrace their uniqueness and conquer the world with invincible confidence. Over the past nine years since the launch of SUGAR Cosmetics in India, the brand has consistently anticipated and met customer demands, maintaining its edge in a fiercely competitive market. With a passion for leadership rather than conformity, SUGAR Cosmetics has continually positioned itself at the forefront of the beauty industry.
Commenting on the campaign, SUGAR Cosmetics co-founder, and COO Kaushik Mukherjee said, “The campaign’s creative thought of “Born to Lead, Not Follow” salutes the spirit of being unstoppable, breaking barriers and challenging societal norms, to create something unique and special. This spirit drives the brand’s core ethos and its product offerings for our consumers. The stellar seven years of the bestseller foundation stick, Ace Of Face, stands testimony of our brand ethos and dedication to providing distinctive value products.”
The campaign is currently live across outdoor media and digital platforms. Billboards can be seen at various locations including in Mumbai at Vakola Flyover @Western Expressway, Sahara Star Junction @Western Expressway, Gokhale Bridge off Western Expressway, and Andheri-Jogeshwari highway among others.
Kaushik Mukherjee’s candid take on SUGAR’s Ace of Base foundation stick product journey
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.
