Ad Campaigns
Weekend Unwind with: Vivify Asia’s Vikram Bhalla
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 Vivify Asia founder and director Vikram Bhalla.
Bhalla is an entrepreneur/filmmaker with a diverse career spanning over 30 years. His journey reflects his enduring passion for events, content creation, and innovation. Vikram’s expertise in lifestyle, music, and the audio industry is the foundation of his creative endeavors. He has actively engaged in various lifestyle segments, including motorcycling, music, audio, cycling, and coffee culture.
Without further ado here it goes…
Your mantra for life
CARPE DIEM – seize the day
A book you are currently reading or plan to read
Just finished Fooled by Randomness: The Hidden Role of Chance in Life and in the Markets
Your fitness mantra, especially during the pandemic
No excuses – virtual cycling on the Zwift platform gave me the opportunity to ride in Europe
Your comfort food
Naga food … something I love cooking for the family
A quote or philosophy that keeps you going when the chips are down
“If you’re going through hell, keep going.” —Winston Churchill
Your guilty pleasure
A Cuban cigar with a cognac while listening to music
The last time you tried something new
Recently, I learned how to make a hollandaise sauce (french cuisine)
A life lesson you learned the hard way
Dont ignore your gut feeling
What gets you excited about life?
When I get a chance to create a new story for a brand
What’s on top of your bucket list?
To start a school for creative pursuits
If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?
Stop and appreciate the present
One thing you would most like to change about the world
The divisive environment, many people, find things to differ on
An activity that keeps you motivated and charged during tough times
Going to the gym
What lifts your spirits when life gets you down?
Playing and looking after my dogs
Your go-to stress buster
Music
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.
