Winning Young Lions takes more than a winning idea
Sougandh Pramod and Malvika Anil Kumar’s submission didn’t just predict technology’s future, but interrogated the nature of trust itself.
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Humans are the marketers; AI is the enabler: Shekar Khosla
Google India’s vice-president for marketing maintains that organisations seeing success with AI are redefining their measures of success.
Impact is relevant only if the idea is great: Kainaz Karmakar
As Cannes Lions Health & Wellness jury president, Ogilvy India’s chief creative officer says strong ideas, not just business metrics, must lead judging.
Cannes made me realise that creativity is chaos pretending to be a process: Saachi Shriyan
This observation from dentsu Creative’s art director, also 2025 Young Lion from India, increasingly resonates across an industry that's reconciling instinct-driven creativity with data-led accountability
Esports needs its own Cannes category: Leo South Asia's Amitesh Rao
A Cannes Lions juror, Rao argues that gamification now shapes culture, education, employability and products—forcing agencies to rethink gaming communities beyond media buys and visibility metrics.
Cannes Lions and the search for strategic thinking
Young marketers increasingly want exposure to business thinking early, as clients grow less patient with execution-only talent pipelines.
Understanding India’s thin Cannes Glass Lions pipeline
BBDO India’s Josy Paul explains how entries demand visible cultural change, long-term commitment, and ideas designed to move society; not merely marketing metrics.
Publicis Production moves from delivery desk to boardroom conversations
Managing partner Varun Shah argues that AI can scale assets, but human instinct, cultural nuance and craft still determine advertising relevance and business outcomes.
Scale is a by-product of delivering great work: Vishal Srivastava
Omnicom Global Solutions’ CEO believes that anything that needs to be automated, should be.
ManipalCigna bets on cultural intelligence over AI sameness
CMO Sapna Desai says AI tools are now common; sharper thinking and cultural nuance will increasingly define brand differentiation.
Beyond cricket: Why Vinit Karnik believes India’s sports economy has untapped headroom
WPP Media South Asia’s managing director - content, sports and entertainment, notes that sports remains advertising’s last reliable appointment-viewing engine delivering guaranteed, mass simultaneous audiences.
LinkedIn shifts sales tech from outreach to decisions
India country manager Kumaresh Pattabiraman says top sellers prioritise buyer intent signals, engaging key stakeholders early with timely insights over volume-led outreach.
When we go wrong, we are bold enough to sunset brands: Sai Ponugoti
Piramal Consumer Healthcare’s CEO explains how precision reshapes capital allocation as quick commerce dominates, and every impression, click and conversion is held accountable.
True integration must go beyond coordination across departments: Jaeho Yoo
Innocean India’s MD and CEO finds most agencies are still fragmented beneath well-presented integration narratives, which is where they fall short.
AdLift sets steep FY27 growth targets amid AI shift
With 60% of searches ending without clicks, AdLift pivots from traffic metrics to ‘answer presence’ as visibility reshapes performance marketing benchmarks.
Titan launches Divers, expands Zero Hour into multi-sport watch lineup
Probing into serious horology, Titan plans to balance engineering credibility with storytelling to compete with global players
Mind share is the new market share: David Shing
The Australian-born digital futurist and marketer suggests that the industry may be over-engineering what was once a straightforward craft: building human connection.
The Mahi method: Trading swagger for assurance
INSIDE THE AD: BHIM’s ‘Mahi Way’ featuring MS Dhoni shifts from spectacle to simplicity, targeting transaction hesitation over noise in India’s competitive UPI market.
Credibility begins with the product, and must be earned there first: Jayanti Khan Chauhan
Bisleri International’s vice chairperson believes that perception of premium brands shifts slowly, and then, all at once.
Exclusive: Former Digitas India COO, Sonia Khurana, joins SuperStuff.ai as COO and partner
Khurana’s remit is to bring precision, enabling the online marketplace to scale 35,000+ expert matches within 72 hours.
Proof over promises: Traya bets on radical transparency
INSIDE THE AD: Swapping scripted marketing for creator-led storytelling, the haircare brand hands narrative control to customers in its #ProofHaiBoss campaign.
Curation cuts through adtech’s fragmentation problem: Gavin Buxton
Magnite’s VP and MD for Asia explains how retail media offers control, while live sports delivers scale without predictability.
It’s so easy to be lazy with AI, that it’s dangerous: Laurent Thevenet
The head of creative technology at Publicis Groupe APAC explains why AI still needs human rigour.
Indē wild reframes Ayurvedistry for Sephora global aisles
Amid legacy players and influencer brands, its founder Diipa Büller-Khosla reframes competition, moving from product differentiation to philosophy-led storytelling and experiential retail.
A brand’s true litmus test is how well it’s connected with consumers: Kunal Sharma
KRBL Limited’s vice president for marketing and organised trade maintains that the biggest challenge for marketers is creating a distinct brand identity in a cluttered FMCG space.
Niva Bupa tests AI co-pilot for direct selling agents
The health insurance company exclusively mentioned to Campaign that it's beta-testing a new AI-driven tele-calling infrastructure that has been trained on millions of past interactions.
AI drives strategy, also masks marketing’s human costs: Arvind Saxena
NEC Corporation India’s Ikigai recasts marketing as culture, but only sustained experimentation—not alignment alone—will convert coherence into credible market outcomes.
Amazon’s Creative Agent bets on scale, but can it sustain spend?
While the AI tool lowers creative barriers for MSMEs, can it drive sustained SMB spend or deepen reliance on a closed-loop platform ecosystem?
Grooming marketing has moved past influencer shortcuts: Bombay Shaving Company’s Deepak Gupta
Having raised INR136 crore recently, the co-founder outlines plans to scale offline reach, build markets, and balance brand investment with margins.
Beyond the heroine: Can Indian entertainment rewrite its own script?
In storytelling economies, representation shapes outcomes; without structural shifts behind the camera, on-screen gains risk remaining incremental and uneven.
Consumers accept tough news; context doesn’t diminish advertising effectiveness: Jamie Jouning
As print struggles to attract Gen Z and millennials, The Economist’s global head of advertising explains how legacy publishers are moving towards digital and video formats to sustain engagement.
AI is a convenient cover for layoffs: Neil Patel
As AI reshapes marketing, NP Digital’s co-founder maintains that disciplined experimentation, not hype, emerges as the clearest path to measurable growth and sustained competitive advantage.
MiQ sharpens India push as Sigma enters programmatic workflows
Sigma’s India rollout follows its global debut in June 2025, aiming to simplify fragmented programmatic buying through data integration and AI-driven planning efficiency.
Open internet growth shifts focus to transparent, privacy-safe performance infrastructure
Mintegral’s senior director of business development, APAC, Khai Le, points to maturing monetisation depth and engagement patterns across Vietnam, India and Indonesia.
Beyond equity: Measuring gender metrics in ad films
As measurement tools sharpen, agencies confront a tougher task: shifting bias checks upstream, embedding inclusion into briefs before budgets and scripts solidify.
Continental Coffee pours out premium coffee without discounting the brand
Continental Coffee calibrates TV-heavy reach in the South with digital precision elsewhere, using SKU strategy and rising budgets to expand occasions without diluting cues.
Owners at the table: How DEPT’s partner model shapes its strategy
EXCLUSIVE: After pausing acquisitions for 18 months, the Dutch agency leans on its 200-partner ownership model to prioritise client value over headline growth metrics.
Tracey Barber on the strategic power of saying no
Havas Creative Network’s global chief transformation and growth officer argues that fewer, better-aligned clients drive stronger growth and accountability.
India AI Impact Summit shifts talk to margins
As AI moves into media planning, vernacular scale and ROI modelling, agencies confront a tougher question: infrastructure upgrade or strategic edge?
Runwal Realty shifts from floor plans to family legacies amid premiumisation slowdown
The real estate major swings to a generational brand platform, tracking cost per lead, walk-ins and branded search to measure pull over push demand.
Streaming finds its voice, forcing ad metrics rethink
As conversational discovery reshapes OTT, brands must track high-intent prompts, thematic recurrence and downstream behaviour—while building relevance and privacy guardrails.
AI adoption runs on confidence, not code: Jaspreet Bindra
AI&Beyond’s co-founder outlines how Yuva.ai shifts AI training from certificates to demonstrable work, tied to briefs, metrics and accountability.
Turning Nazar Battu into a B2B growth lever
INSIDE THE AD: Plum sent 60 founders a hand-painted evil-eye doll and a QR code, recasting business insurance as culture-led consultation rather than fear-led compliance.
Agencies must get closer to tech platforms, like frenemies: Sir Martin Sorrell
S4 Capital’s executive chairman says hyperscalers’ $600 billion AI capex shift is breaking profit–agency revenue link.
PepsiCo unveils F1 pact through portfolio play
It staged its Formula 1 entry as a phased, multi-brand rollout, arguing cultural fit and earned engagement outweigh blanket visibility.
We aren't just selling prestige, we are selling values too: Rado CEO Adrian Bosshard
With India driving 47.4% of global searches, Rado reviews US ambassador strategy to balance growth, equity and market diversification.
Perfetti reworks cultural memory, without rewriting it
From reframing ‘Zubaan Pe Rakhe Lagaam’ to ‘Dimaag Pe Rakhe Lagaam’ and launching the India Overthinking Report, the brand stress-tests legacy through cultural insight.
India’s ‘parental shield’ tops Snap’s digital well-being index, but cracks are showing
Snap’s 9,000-respondent DWBI ranks India highest. Yet, cyberbullying, misinformation and addictive design expose Gen Z risks, pushing brands toward stronger guardrails.
McVitie’s threads heritage through India’s premium biscuit squeeze
Despite biscuits seeing roughly 55% rural consumption, it prioritises metros as strongholds, using selective distribution and premium positioning over mass expansion.
Solitario uses pop culture IP to reframe lab-grown diamonds
By tapping Warner Bros franchises, the lab-grown diamond brand tests whether licensed IP can shift diamonds from heirlooms to culturally relevant, repeatable consumer products.
Can protein coffee move beyond the hype at Starbucks India?
The café chain’s Protein Cold Foam pushes functional coffee into daily rituals, walking a tightrope between habit-building, health fatigue and protein-washing scepticism.
Sachin Talwalkar bets on independence with & ignite
After a five-year stint at Havas Life, former chief creative officer bets on independence, amid shifting agency economics.
Coffee’s shift from drink to cultural signal
From curated trails and creator-led rituals, coffee marketing shows how culture and content now drive premiumisation among young urban consumers.
YouTube moves from scale to structured commerce
CEO Neal Mohan’s 2026 roadmap reframes the platform’s focus on creator infrastructure, tightening links between content, advertising, commerce and measurable outcomes.
Reputation moves from narrative to balance sheet
Burson’s global study quantifies reputation as deployable capital, linking credibility gaps, workplace choices and governance to measurable shareholder returns.
Kaizzen’s AI push reframes PR from productivity to reputation
With the launch of Kaizzen AI Collective, the communications agency expects at least two dozen Indian clients to engage in AI-led communications intelligence by FY2026.
Influencers turn movie launches into always-on distribution engines
From trailers to feeds, creator-led promotions now anchor film launches, reshaping budgets, discovery mechanics and how opening momentum is measured.
Madison Media pushes AI upstream in media planning by launching MbrAIn, Madison 3.0
With these introductions, the media agency reframes AI as a strategic planning partner, not an execution shortcut.
Azorte’s bid to be Gen Z’s ‘safe space’
Reframing mediocrity as transition, the Reliance Retail fashion brand’s caregiver-led campaigns used reassurance over aspiration to drive footfalls, relevance and measurable retail outcomes.
Forevermark tests retail playbook in India’s diamond battleground
Its ‘My Guiding Light’ campaign centres personal agency in diamond buying, positioning value-led choice amid rising competition from lab-grown diamonds.
X, Grok and the limits of safe harbour in India
Campaign Explainer: India’s warning over Grok revives advertiser anxieties from 2022, reopening questions of brand safety, platform accountability and Musk-era moderation gaps.
The campaigns that cut through in 2025
Across categories and platforms, the year’s standout campaigns trusted audiences, tapped lived behaviour, and let cultural insight — not clutter — drive impact.
Shark Tank India returns to television, chasing cultural scale
Season five’s TV comeback underscores that reaching its next growth phase will depend on advertisers evolving with audiences, not slicing them into narrow demographics.
When first-party data fragments, person-based marketing takes centre stage: Lakshmana Gnanapragasam
Epsilon India’s SVP-Analytics explains how person-based marketing confronts duplication, blind spots and false scale, turning identity resolution into a commercial, not technical, decision.
EBITDA targets and vowel-free branding drive Wondrlab toward IPO
The martech agency is executing a 26-company acquisition roadmap to achieve a 100-crore profit benchmark for its public market debut.
The new currency of culture: Why brands are chasing value in India’s booming concert economy
In the noise of the country’s booming live entertainment market, experiential utility, not visibility, has become the differentiator.
Zen Diamond’s four-act launch outruns the celebrity curve
A phased rollout amplified brand ambassador Jennifer Lopez’s film organically, clocking 30,41,862 impressions and 85,209 engagements beyond the usual endorsement spike.
PepsiCo’s Red Rock Deli goes scroll-first, shelf later
A creator-led launch and cinematic brand film aim to spark desire and impulse online, sidestepping price cues in a crowded gourmet snacks market.
Marketing’s data dilemma: Why relevance, not reach, defines attention
Rohit Dadwal, CEO of MMA Global Asia Pacific, explains why marketers must stop chasing dashboards and start designing for relevance in a world that scrolls fast, but still remembers what matters.
When death becomes the messenger
How Chupps and Into Creative are leaning on sombre storytelling to sell sustainability.
Can Killer’s ‘I Wear India’ campaign translate sentiment into scale?
The indigenous fashion brand taps rising cultural confidence as India’s youth weigh local design, digital discovery, and lifestyle ambition in an increasingly competitive market.
Spotify Wrapped taps fan banter to fuel its campaign
Emraan Hashmi and Raghav Juyal anchor the annual campaign as India’s data-led, creator-heavy listening habits take centre stage.
HDFC Securities and Nitesh Tiwari built a cinematic counter to India’s fraud economy
Its ‘Scam 2025’ campaign leans on entertainment-led storytelling to decode digital fraud, signalling a shift in how brands approach financial literacy.
Fast-fashion playbook shifts as Indian Garage Co repositions
Its #FreeStyleIt campaign adopts a cinematic, platform-led strategy to test whether stylised storytelling can convert youth attention into measurable action.
Neeyat 3.0 maps India’s credit decisions to lived reality
Piramal Finance’s marketing campaign reframes lending through ethnographic insight, regional nuance and a distribution engine built for semi-urban India’s next wave of borrowers.
India’s quick commerce surge exposes a discipline gap for marketers
Lalatendu Das, CEO, Publicis Media South Asia explains why brand marketers are still figuring out India’s fastest-growing retail channel.
Creators aren't the destination; they're often a launching point: Edelman’s Tristan Roy
As AI scales, Edelman’s president of Integrated Solutions and Delivery believes that the real battle is protecting trust and originality. In 2026, integration is inevitable, but integrity is not optional.
Loca Loka bets on India’s premium tequila wave with measured rollout
Can its blend of global heritage, local cultural narrative, and controlled rollout strategy move beyond curiosity?
Can Ellerton & Co’s cross-border PR corridor redefine Asia’s communications playbook?
As the agency plants its flag in India, its founder and India head share the strategy behind its ‘Greater Southeast Asia’ ambition
Stress takes centre stage in Duroflex’s marketing reset
Its shift to emotional sleep wellbeing, unveiled alongside its DRHP filing, tests whether stress relief can drive premiumisation in India’s fragmented mattress market.
Bisleri recasts hydration as lifestyle in a fragmented market
Its #DrinkItUp 2.0 campaign leans on the learning that hydration had moved from utility to a part of fitness, self-care and cultural expression amongst Gen Z.
How Perfetti’s marketing formula endures amid India’s changing tastes
Nikhil Sharma explains how grounded fundamentals, humour-led assets and distribution scale continue to anchor Perfetti Van Melle’s playbook in the country’s fragmented, fast-shifting confectionary market.
Constipation goes public as Dulcoflex tackles the quiet crisis
Its latest campaign tests whether calibrated humour and creator-led candour can shift India’s long-standing silence around everyday digestive discomfort.
Monopoly’s digital turn tests a century of play
The App Banking edition pushes the 90-year-old Hasbro franchise into hybrid territory, raising fresh questions for marketers about modernising legacy IP without losing its core appeal.
Why MMA India’s Moneka Khurana feels it’s time to retire the CMO title
At MMA Smarties Unplugged India, her conversation with Campaign turned from creativity to capability — and why marketing’s traditional role may no longer fit today’s business realities.
Can movies move the needle on child trafficking?
On Children’s Day, director Keith Gomes and activist Dipesh Tank discuss how Dear Men seeks to make India look unflinchingly at trafficking — and why brands hesitate to engage.
Can designing emotional interactions shift behaviour? Envelop says, yes
As Indian brands move from spectacle to substance, the agency’s founder Jai Sharma explains how experiential design is becoming measurable strategy and why emotion now defines marketing effectiveness.
How necessity, not hype, birthed Liqvd Asia's AI-led studio model
By embedding AI into its new production model, the agency aims to balance automation with emotion — scaling storytelling without losing its human core.
“AI powers the engine, and humans steer the story in marketing”: Linkedin’s Jessica Jensen
EXCLUSIVE: LinkedIn’s marketing head says while AI sharpens data and precision, it’s human insight, empathy, and creativity that keep marketing truly powerful and effective.
Inside Adobe MAX 2025: How agentic AI is redefining the future of creativity and marketing
AI was not positioned as a replacement for human creativity, but as an intelligent collaborator that could reshape the marketing and creative ecosystem.
Inside PHD’s playbook: Why in-housing and empathy drive its growth
By treating in-housing as collaboration, not competition, PHD is reframing agency relationships through trust, empathy, and tech-enabled adaptability amid industry consolidation.
Snapchat’s ad bet finds an ally in IAS as inbox ads redefine engagement
As it deepens its partnership with IAS for third-party verification, the social media platform is redefining chat as a measurable, brand-safe advertising frontier.
QuickAds’ $1.7 million bet: Can AI fix advertising’s 90% failure rate?
Its pitch to performance-driven D2C brands, agencies, and enterprise teams is straightforward: turn advertising from a guessing game into a measurable science.
Why Shah Rukh Khan still rules India’s brand universe at 60
From Doordarshan to digital, he has not just adapted to India’s changing media landscape, but helped shape it. As he turns 60, what makes him adland’s most bankable brand?
Kotak’s marketing shift: From Solitaire to scalability
Its marketing chief, Kedarswamy Ravangave, explains how products like Solitaire and campaigns like ‘Hausla’ signal BFSI’s pivot from eligibility to access.
Airtel Payments Bank’s ‘Safe Second Account’ urges digital caution
INSIDE THE AD: In a market obsessed with speed and cashback, Airtel Payments Bank’s latest campaign urges Indians to slow down—and bank smarter.
Spotify turns down the noise on AI-generated music
With deepfakes, duplicates and data farms flooding audio platforms, Spotify rolls out tougher rules to protect authenticity, royalties and trust.
McDonald’s India walks the line between value and novelty
Arvind RP, CMO of McDonald’s India (West & South) outlines how the QSR is adapting to India’s value-conscious yet upgrade-seeking consumers in a fragmented market.
Hilton’s 20-year McLaren play turns fandom into loyalty
At Singapore’s Grand Prix, the hospitality major marked two decades with racing company — using activations, drivers and loyalty perks to tie hospitality to fandom.