Ad Campaigns
upGrad’s latest digital campaign encourages India Inc. to skip excuses and make the right career investments
Mumbai: upGrad, Asia’s largest integrated learning, skilling and workforce development, and placement company has unveiled the third and very important tranche of its most popular digital Campaign ‘Real People, Real Stories’. The new campaign is designed to inspire working professionals to upskill with market-ready courses and gain a competitive edge for successful career shifts. The campaign features 3 impactful films with relatable real-life scenarios to address the wider perception issues of professionals who often delay upskilling for something less material in life or to a future date.
Conceptualised by upGrad’s in-house content and brand teams, the 3-part digital films have been uniquely shot to highlight the strong learning pillars that have been helping upGrad learners develop stronger subject foundations backed by hands-on training and assignments for tangible career outcomes after program completion. Some of these elements include live lectures on niche topics, 1:1 mentorship sessions, industry-led modules and case studies, interview preparation and a unique simulating platform to practice coding among others. Each film opens with fictional on-screen characters and introduces upGrad’s real-life learners in the second half of the plot who have experienced the curriculum benefits, thus also overcoming the apprehensions associated with upskilling or online learning as a concept.
Commenting on the launch, upGrad head of marketing Ankit Khirwal said, “In our research, we found out that professionals always procrastinate investing in their careers through upskilling. They prefer to invest their time, money and trust in indulgences or short-term gratifications, mostly because upskilling is hard and the outcome is not immediate. Most realise it until it is too late – in the form of delayed or no promotions, poor increments, and a mismatch of competency with a better job profile. This campaign is to implore professionals like us to not make wrong choices for something that is essential in today’s world where existing job profiles are rapidly becoming obsolete. One must do enough to stay relevant and ahead, like the 10M other professionals who took the right step and trusted in upGrad for their careers. Our 85% completion rate is a testament to the effectiveness of our courses and upGrad’s commitment to making India a skilled knowledge superpower.”
upGrad head of creative and content marketing Shreyas Shevade added, “People make excuses to not do things that are good for them. It’s baffling but true. It’s why most people are unhealthy but few do anything about it, why most people don’t buy insurance despite life being uncertain, and also why despite tens of millions of jobs getting defunct every year, only 10 million people have enrolled into upGrad since inception. As a brand we want to challenge this excuse-mindset towards work in general and upskilling in particular. We binge watch but say we don’t have time after work to upskill. We spend lakhs to upgrade our gadgets but hardly anything to upgrade our skills. Even we at upGrad see our learners getting ahead in their careers after doing a course with us but to be honest a lot of us don’t upskill even with our employee benefits. This campaign hopefully is an eye opener for both our consumers as well as our colleagues, like it has been for those who conceived it.”
Through the first and second tranches of its ‘Real People, Real Stories’ campaign, the upskilling giant has garnered 500+ million impressions and 225+ million YouTube views. These growing numbers have also helped the upGrad improve brand consideration among the previously under-penetrated segments.
The digital campaign is live across upGrad’s all digital channels including YouTube and social media platforms.
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.
