Ad Campaigns
Weekend Unwind with: By Design founder & chief creative officer Rahul Gupta
Mumbai: With another weekend upon us, it is time to unwind with the latest Q&A edition of Indiantelevision.com’s Weekend Unwind—a series of informal chats that peek into the minds of business executives through a fun lens in an attempt to get to know the person behind the title a little better.
In this week’s session, we have By Design founder & chief creative officer Rahul Gupta.
Gupta’s in-depth knowledge of brands & the dynamics within which they operate has enabled him to devise many unique & innovative integrated brand development solutions and creative strategies across the communication spectrum for the many successful brands handled by By Design (formerly IBD). Over the last few years, the agency has evolved into a potent multi-functional full-service agency that offers services like integrated marketing Communications, brand development, digital marketing, production, design and packaging across multiple sectors including FMCG, fashion, retail, lifestyle, consumer electronics, PSU, realty, hospitality & pharmaceuticals.
So, without further ado, here it goes…
- Your mantra for Life
Events happen, deeds are done, but there is no individual doer thereof.
- A Book you are currently reading?
Let life flow by Ramesh Balsekar.
- Your Fitness mantra, especially during the pandemic?
Run for your life.
- Your comfort food?
Dal and rice.
- When the chips are down a quote/ philosophy that keeps you going?
This too, shall pass.
- Your guilty pleasure?
Partying hard.
- When was the last time you tried something new?
Last year I tried kickboxing for a couple of months!
- A Life lesson you learnt the hard way?
Don’t lose your cool, don’t react to provocation, learn to adjust.
- What gets you excited about life?
The fact that because of the industry I am in, I get to work on different challenges every day.
- What’s on top of your bucket list?
I’m all about the simple pleasures of life and never really had a bucket list per se but I think I’ve had a lot of memorable experiences that I am grateful for. If I had to pick one thing though, it would be to drive a race car.
- If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?
Don’t let success get to your head.
- One thing you would most like to change about the world?
Racial discrimination, undoubtedly.
- An activity that keeps you motivated / charged during tough times?
Chanting a mantra and exercising in the gym.
- What lifts your spirits when life gets you down?
Spending quality time with family and close friends.
- Your go-to stress buster?
Mostly the gym, as you can tell from my answers so far. Sometimes an evening out with friends at a bar.
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.
