Ad Campaigns
The world survives on creativity: Piyush Pandey at Ad Asia 2021
Mumbai: The pandemic took a heavy toll on people, and constrained activities across industries. So much so that it made the advertising industry apprehensive of its deleterious effects on the creativity of its workforce. But according to Ogilvy chairman of global creative Piyush Pandey, ‘creativity is still alive and kicking’ and fuelling the industry in the post-pandemic world.
Sharing his views on the ‘Advertising innovation under Covid-19 pandemic’, Pandey said that he is frequently asked whether the pandemic has killed the creativity of the advertising industry.
“The world survives on creativity,” responded the industry veteran while allaying any such concerns. “In fact, the pandemic has taught us that lives can be saved through creativity. Right from scientists who brought vaccines at unprecedented speeds to governments who found new solutions to administer those vaccines to millions, and to common people who remained confined in their homes, every one of us had to get creative with their lives to survive and thrive,” he said emphatically.
Pandey also lauded the work done by several advertising agencies during the lockdown, and cited three examples of great creativity that stood out for him.
The first, a made-at-home short film ‘Family’ launched in April 2020 which carried the message of ‘Stay Home, Stay Safe’ while also raising funds for the daily wage workers and technicians of film industries across the country hit by the pandemic. The film featuring several top actors was virtually directed by Prasoon Pandey, without any of the actors stepping out of their homes. Sponsored by Sony Pictures & Kalyan Jewellers, the film helped in collecting $3 million a because of a little creativity in the most terrible of times.
The second film Pandey named was Savlon India’s campaign promoting handwashing, released in October 2020. The campaign “Hand Hygiene for all” executed in partnership with Mouth and Foot Painting Artists (MFPA) highlighted the message of handwashing effectively. The story was told through a day in the life of Swapna, a talented foot artist, who by her own example shows how handwashing is the easiest way to prevent Covid and other infections and why we should all be doing it. “Think of solutions executed with both your hands tied behind your back,” said Pandey.
He also made a special mention of the Cadburys’ Dairy milk Diwali campaign, ‘Not just a Cadbury ad’ where the confectionary major batted for the small shop owners by getting ‘India’s biggest brand ambassador’, Shah Rukh Khan to be the brand ambassador for each of the local stores. Retailers and small local stores were shut due to pandemic, as people ordered even essential, everyday items online. So the brand used machine learning & AI to help retailers create their own ads, which were promoted by Khan as per the pin code of the viewer.
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.
