Ad Campaigns
Vodafone’s pug comes back to announce SuperNet
MUMBAI: Vodafone couldn’t have had a more impactful and adorable way to introduce its latest 4G services, Supernet, than to bring back its iconic pug. The K9 brand ambassador had been a witness to the brand’s growth over the years on the network front and the star of many a brand communications. Therefore the latest series of 15 seconds ads to announce Vodafone’s much anticipated 4G services was a good way to bring back Cheeka the pug and evoke a sense of nostalgia.
Announcing the launch of Vodafone SuperNet, Vodafone India consumer director Sandeep Kataria said, “Network plays a crucial role in enhancing customer experience. In our continuing endeavour to provide superior voice and data services, we have made significant investments to expand, upgrade and modernise our network across the country. To cater to evolving consumer needs, we use multiple technologies to provide over 194 million (19.4 crore) customers across the country, all-round benefits of a seamless network experience, beyond just speed.”
The new campaign is being promoted with a high decibel 360 degree creative communication. Conceptualised by Ogilvy & Mather and produced by Nirvana Films, the three ads released so far, namely – Pug drums a beat, Pug ride a truck and Pug paints — effortlessly create a sense of familiarity and draw audience into their new 4G network, ‘Vodafone 4G SuperNet.
“The pug was a character we generally used when we did networks ads, with the last one being in 2012. Vodafone’s 4G service SuperNet required a network campaign and that’s why we thought to reintroduce everyone’s favourite Vodafone pug,” said Ogilvy & Mather Group creative director Kiran Anthony.
These aren’t really long stories that the creatives usually do for the brand. The new films are hardly 7 to 10 seconds of content and 15 second overall. It comes, does it work and is gone.
Explaining why they didn’t go for a full-fledged 60 seconder and stuck to a 15 second ad film, he added, “It is not always that you require a lengthy ad film. Sometimes a post-production can also do the job. Moreover, these 15 seconders will get much more frequency when shown on television, especially with the cricket matches that are going on. Normally there aren’t that many 60 sec ad slots. A 60 sec ad can come once or twice during a match, this can come 20 or 30 times.”
The agency is currently working on expanding the campaign and come up with a lengthy version of the ad soon.
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.
