Ad Campaigns
Varun Dhawan invites entries for The Skybags Canvas project Season 2
MUMBAI After a successful first season, Skybags from the house of V.I.P Industries is back with Season 2 of ‘The Skybags Canvas Project.’ The campaign is a one-of-a-kind outreach, which offers creative minds a chance to create exciting designs exclusively for a new collection of bags from Skybags.
Starting 29 April, the campaign will allow contestants to upload their fresh and appealing designs and generate maximum ‘likes’ from their friends and followers on social media until 31 March. The entries will be personally reviewed by brand ambassador and actor Varun Dhawan and VIP Industries design and development VP Vasant Dewaji.
The winner’s design will feature on Skybags’ next bag collection and also be awarded a high-performance laptop and the runner-up will win a sensational hover board. Contestants are also in for a great ride as Skybags will give away a new backpack daily to the finest design entry of the day.
Announcing the launch of this campaign Dhawan said, “Skybags is all about moving in style, and nothing screams out ‘style’ louder than designing something of your own. The Canvas Project is something to keep an eye out for; especially for those who want to make a personal statement and like to showcase their creativity. It would be really exciting to see what designs contestants come up with week after week and finally what will be selected as the best design for the new collection.”
Commenting on the marketing campaign VIP Industries VP Sudip Ghose said , “The first season of this campaign was extremely well received by the young, enthusiastic Skybags fans helping us source thousands of design submissions and in season 2 we are hoping to double the figures. As a brand we are always looking at ways to innovate and to offer something unique which truly resonates with our audience. The Canvas Project offers a great proposition not just for the audience to engage with the brand but also for the brand to understand the mindset of the consumers and to offer a quality product.”
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.
