Ad Campaigns

Dentsu Impact’s Amit Wadhwa on fire-fighting and self-reflection during 2020

Published

5 years ago

December 21, 2020

New Delhi: 2020 has been an extremely challenging year for the advertising industry — in the wake of the pandemic, marketing budgets were slashed, teams had to adapt to new ways of working from home in no time and deliver to clients, and business priorities and plans had to be redefined because no planner and strategists could foresee the Covid impact on businesses.

Despite all the odds, industry professionals have relentlessly worked hard and come up with great campaigns that have been able to move the masses and change brand perceptions.

Indiantelevision.com’s Devesh Gupta spoke to dentsu Impact president Amit Wadhwa on what he thinks about 2020, how advertising industry has adapted to new norms, client expectations during this time, how pandemic has impacted creativity and what is the way forward.

Excerpts:

On year 2020 for advertising agencies.

It has been a year that no one ever imagined and for not the best of reasons. It’s been a year where a lot of things were tried and tested not because people wanted to but because they had no options. Ironically, a lot of our presentations had ‘Vision 2020’ but it soon turned into ‘Mission 2020’. It’s been a tough year but good in a sense that it pushed people to think, try and do new things.

On seeking positivity.

Nothing we had planned happened the way we had planned. So the question was, if you have to sail through in the best possible way, how would you do that and in the bargain see what all you need as an individual to get better, learn new things and get the organisation moving. There was some fire-fighting and a bit of self-reflection.

dentsu Impact was already moving into the digital space and that helped us as we hastened the process far more quickly and almost 95 per cent workforce is digitally savvy. We now handle the digital mandate of all our businesses, and that actually helped us sail through this year.

On the new normal for agency businesses,

There is nothing normal, everyday is different.

From a business point of view, managing the numbers itself and the innovative ways we are deploying to do that. We are not sitting in but are aggressively going after the businesses. We are looking at growing the business in a different vertical. For instance, we were handling creative and media, then decided to also take care of digital creative and media and use this opportunity to strengthen and grow.

On the people front, work from home seems like bliss but it is tough. Working hours have crept into late nights and weekends. We are trying to do whatever we can at our end to ensure people are taken care of in whatever way we can — that’s another big challenge faced by organisations.

On pandemic changing the creative business.

There are two sides to it. We are running our business very creatively as we never thought we would operate with everyone sitting at home. And even with such challenges, we put a strong performance. We found creative ways of tackling things.

Initially, it was a bit of a daze, that what has hit us, and the idea was to survive and stay afloat. Slowly, people got into a rhythm, started figuring things out, and realised that it is creativity that will keep us going. One good idea from the team brings happiness for the group (even more than what we used to feel in the pre-Covid days). These times have propelled us to push more for it.

I agree that creative business is about sitting together and brainstorming ideas. Having said that I think that creative people have taken bigger onus for themselves to ensure they crack great ideas. We have seen some great concepts of late and I think that it’s because they are pushing themselves to do it. They are also figuring out ways of brainstorming – calls, crash on ideas, feedback, but I think they pushed a lot and a lot of respect for that.

On client expectations.

At the end of the day, they are also running a business. Having said that everyone has a human side to him or her and they also realise the situation. For instance, we did a no-work Wednesday at dentsu Impact and informed the clients before hand, and they supported it. We managed to give an off to people. Had they not supported us, it would have not been possible.

They have expectations from us. There is a dire need from our end to deliver on that. The good part is that there are people on both sides who understand each other. So, we are figuring out our own balance.

On the year 2020 for dentsu Impact.

It has been a good year. We have managed some new businesses and consolidated some great wins. We extended our relationship clients on different fronts. Initially, April and May was tough then slowly things picked up. During the lockdown too, we won a business, which was great. We have been aggressive and held on to our existing businesses.

So, approximately 15 per cent of the total revenue this year is coming from the new business wins.

On margins for creative agencies this year.

For the first two months (April – May), margins took a dip but we took cost-control measures and overall we have done a good job. Now, more or less, we are back to the pre-Covid levels.

On top priorities for dentsu Impact this year (once Covid hit).

Business continuity and people were our biggest priority. We have a way of working in advertising which was not going to be the same as people were moving home. We had to set up connectivity, machines in people’s houses, and most importantly had to deliver to clients because we are committed to them.

The second was people as they were going into different scenarios of work as to how you could keep everyone engaged.

On the future of agency culture.

If I say everything is normal and right, it would not be true. Some people who joined after lockdown, I have only seen them on video calls but haven’t met them in person. I love to meet, interact and discuss things with people and I honestly miss that. We are finding ways to do different things. For instance, we had some amazing pitches during this time and I could not imagine us pitching so fantastically where everything went like clockwork. For sure its not 100 per cent normal but the fun is in inventing new things right now.

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Ad Campaigns

Amazon Ads maps 2026 as AI and streaming rewrite ad playbooks

Published

1 month ago

January 15, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

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.

Ad Campaigns

Publicis India appoints Sonal Verma as Arc Worldwide MD

Published

1 month ago

January 15, 2026

indiantelevision.com Team

MUMBAI: Publicis Groupe India has appointed Sonal Verma as managing director of Arc Worldwide India, handing the reins of its experiential and shopper marketing business to a leader steeped in live brands and real world storytelling.

Arc Worldwide, the Groupe’s specialist arm focused on experiences that nudge consumers from curiosity to checkout, sits at the intersection of creativity, commerce and culture. Verma’s mandate is to sharpen that edge as brands grapple with shorter attention spans and more complicated buying journeys.

Verma joins from Cheil India, where she spent nearly five years building and leading the brand experience practice, most recently as senior vice president and head of brand experience. Her career reads like a tour of India’s experiential landscape, with leadership roles at Momentum Worldwide, Percept D Mark, Blockkbuster Events and Showtime Events.

She has also held senior activation roles at Radio City and The Times of India, giving her a rare mix of agency, media and on-ground execution experience. The common thread has been simple: turning big ideas into moments people remember and talk about.

At Arc Worldwide India, Verma will focus on expanding the agency’s experiential and shopper capabilities, strengthening client partnerships and keeping the work firmly rooted in consumer behaviour rather than buzzwords.

With Verma at the helm, Arc Worldwide is expected to double down on ideas that live beyond screens and closer to everyday life. For an industry obsessed with clicks and scrolls, this is a reminder that sometimes the strongest connections still happen face to face.

Ad Campaigns

Barbeque Nation taps ‘milne ki bhookh’ to kick off the new year

Published

2 months ago

December 29, 2025

indiantelevision.com Team

BENGALURU: Barbeque Nation is ringing in the new year with a reminder that some cravings cannot be ordered online. The casual dining chain has rolled out a new film campaign, milne ki bhookh, pitching its restaurants as places to meet, reconnect and linger over food.

Set against a world of constant messages and missed meet-ups, the campaign leans into a simple truth: dining out remains one of the few rituals that still brings people together. Barbeque Nation positions itself as the excuse and the setting for real conversations, shared plates and unhurried moments.

Nakul Gupta, cmo at Barbeque Nation, says the brand has long been about shared celebrations. As the year turns, milne ki bhookh captures what he calls a growing hunger to meet, connect and spend time together, with food at the centre of that experience.

Created by Makani Creatives, the campaign comprises three films built around Barbeque Nation’s signature grills and desserts. The storytelling is deliberately sensorial, designed to spark cravings while nudging diners to step out and meet in person.

Pavan Punjabi, chief integration officer at Makani Creatives, says the idea stems from a familiar contradiction. People are constantly connected, yet meetings with loved ones are endlessly postponed. Milne ki bhookh, he says, is a gentle push to make time for real-life catch-ups, using food as the reason to come together, share a meal and create memories.

The campaign breaks on December 25 with the grilled prawns film and will run for two months, amplified across digital platforms. As the new year begins, Barbeque Nation is betting that the strongest appetite of all is not for food alone, but for each other.