Ad Campaigns
Three ad campaigns to watch out for on Republic Day
MUMBAI: Marketers are forever in search of new engaging ways to connect with consumers, but consumers, at the end of the day, are people. In India, the word ‘people’ has a varied connotation with the country having a population of over a billion, nestling several languages, religions and cultures. Hence a message targeted at a few million might not connect with the rest.
While the Indian calendar is checkered with festivals that trigger traction from several millions, there are few things that connect the 1.8 billion as one like cricket, a national crisis or even our pride as Indians.
Creatives understand this well, and have time and again thrilled, moved, excited and even tickled us with these instances of Indian-ness. This Republic Day too, there are a handful of brands riding the patriotic wave and delivering some version of the many facets of what makes us Indian. Indiantelevision.com handpicks a few for our readers.
9XM’s #OneDreamOneIndia
A Republic Day video preaching religious harmony has been done to death and therefore is commonplace. But what about a video that reflects unity of several political ideologies? That is exactly what we see in this 90-second video where actors — who are clearly depicting stalwarts from major political parties in India — join hands to stand up against any threat to the nation. Going on air on 25 January, the ident ‘OneDreamOneIndia’ is sung by JSL Singh and Ranjit Bawa capturing the nation’s spirit of unity and freedom. The ident will be promoted across social media platforms and YouTube. After laughing at several newspaper cartoons that make fun of the rivalry between the national parties, and cracking up at their puppet parodies on television and digital medium, this new initiative from 9XM comes as a breath of fresh air.
Gaali Free India
Our constitution grants us free speech and by virtue of it we are free to use the language we choose, even if it is vulgar. But have we stretched our freedom too far to notice that ‘gaali’ has become part of our vocabulary? A question Water Communications’ founder and director Vandana Sethhi asks the nation through an innovative campaign.
Inspired by Prime Minister’s ‘Swachh Bharat’ initiative, the campaign gives an interesting spin off and seeks cleanliness in speech.
Videocon: FlagOfChange
The tricolour of Indian national flag evokes several emotions. It also carries the burden of several freedom fighters who gave their lives to gift us this day when we walk free with pride. It also carries the pride of the leaders of that time who gave their blood and sweat in building the Constitution. And yet we see many amongst us who take this for granted and bring down the decades worth of effort in a minute by giving into petty temptations. To some, it’s for extra cash, while for others, it might be to save themselves from bureaucratic hassles. This powerful short-film by Videocon created by Rediffusion Y&R reminds us of the burden of the Indian flag and urges everyone to start changing our mindset, at the same time inserting a message on anti-corruption.
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.
