Ad Campaigns
Suhana introduces new chili powder in Gujarat with new campaign
Mumbai: From a small line of homemade masalas to becoming a household name in Maharashtra, Suhana has come a long way. Along with securing their legacy over time, they cracked the knack of understanding nuances of regional palates and catering to the same. Today their portfolio ranges from pure masalas to spice mixes to ready-to-cook and even ready-to-eat ranges.
Suhana now wants to take on the Gujarat spice market with the same spirit. To do so, the brand spent time with well-seasoned cooks to understand the Gujarati palate in-depth and curate specific spice powders.
Suhana thus partnered with Sideways Consulting to conceptualise a campaign to elevate their spice line in Gujarat.
While the entire category plays on taste and colour, Suhana realised that their product was winning at aroma – which gave Sideways a fresh proposition to play with.
The campaign is built around the counter-intuitive insight that – ‘the most well-seasoned cooks rarely judge by taste, but by smell.’ Sideways chose to bring this alive through the humorous lens of a ‘picky daadi’ in a Gujarati household.
Suhana’s relationship with Sideways Consulting is a long-standing one going back to their iconic ‘Mazaa aa gaya” campaigns. The new campaign reflects the same essence of cheeky fun brought to the table.
The film will be released in Gujarati and Hindi across television as well as digital platforms.
No one sniffs out what’s going on in a house like a daadi. It feels like she has a superhuman ability. So, when it came to launching Suhana’s new chilli powder that has a distinct aroma, we saw an opportunity.
Sideways’ newest film attempts to capture this insight in the most hilarious manner possible. Here’s what the team had to say about the campaign.
Pravin Masalewale (Suhana) director – strategy, marketing and finance Vishal Chordia: “We debuted in the Gujarat market back in 2009 and are now elated to further expand our product range. The renewed marketing initiative in Gujarat with a special product range and a multimedia marketing campaign will reinforce our existing legacy, broaden our customer base, and contribute towards our business expansion plans. We are delighted to have partnered up with Sideways Consulting, Altivyst Advisors, and Corcoise Films to bring this vision to life.”
Sideways founder Abhijit Avasthi: “We’ve always done humorous films for Suhana, rooted in real-life insights.
So when it came to launching a chilli powder with a distinct aroma, we thought who better to use than someone who can sniff out everything that goes on in a house… the daadi.”
Nilay Moonje & Sameer Sojwal (creative heads & ECDs, Sideways) had this to say about the campaign: “When it comes to cooking, the daadi is the authority figure in most households. Our campaign uses this insight to land Suhana’s new chilli powder in the most fun way possible.”
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.
