Hit or Miss: The week in ads

This week's crop of campaigns leans heavily on star power and festive-season momentum, with Bollywood's biggest names anchoring multiple big-budget releases. Rungta Steel brings together Shah Rukh Khan, Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor for a self-aware, banter-driven TVC, while Myntra doubles down on its Alia-Ranbir pairing for the Big Fashion Festival, turning everyday mishaps into shopping triggers. LAVA takes a different route, using Rohit Saraf and Pratibha Ranta to build a full romantic music film around its Virat Curve 5G.

Beyond celebrity wattage, the week is marked by strong regional and cultural rooting. Flipkart's Kolkata bus activation and Škoda's Khasi rap collaboration both localise national campaigns through distinctly regional lenses. Sentiment-led storytelling also features prominently, with Stayfree and Clinic Plus using Daughter's Day as a platform to address menstrual stigma and generational strength within families.

Category disruption shows up too, as Vadilal and Parle join forces to bring Hide and Seek into ice cream, while JSW Group and Axis Bank round out the week with patriotic sport messaging and digital banking behaviour shifts, respectively. Together, the campaigns reflect a season where emotional resonance, star casting and cultural specificity are all being used to cut through festive clutter.

Rungta Steel - “Ekdum Solid”

Flipkart - “Board The Bus To BBD Bagh”
Flipkart has taken its Big Billion Days campaign to the streets of Kolkata with ‘Kothaye Jaabe Dada?’, turning the city’s iconic BBD Bagh and its bus culture into a festive shopping touchpoint. The activation taps into the familiar Kolkata commute, using select buses, bus tickets, and route-style announcements to bring Big Billion Days messaging into everyday city life. Tickets carry sale offers and QR codes that passengers can scan to explore the shopping event, while the campaign film follows a Kolkata bus conductor whose long-standing association with the BBD Bagh route gives the idea its central narrative. The familiar “BBD! BBD!” call is reimagined as a cue for Big Billion Days, extending Flipkart’s ‘Luck Badal Sakta Hai, Yahan Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai’ proposition into a distinctly local activation.

Stayfree - “Beta Stayfree Le Aana”
Stayfree has unveiled a new Daughter’s Day digital film as the latest chapter of its award-winning #BetaStayfreeLeAana campaign, extending its long-running effort to normalise conversations around periods by focusing on how boys are raised to understand menstrual health. Conceptualised by Team WPP, the film follows Rohan, a young boy whose mother casually asks him to buy Stayfree during a game of gully cricket. While his friends react with embarrassment and teasing, Rohan remains matter-of-fact, having grown up in a household where periods are discussed openly. As the boys question common myths and taboos, Rohan’s comfort gradually influences them, culminating in the group confidently asking a shopkeeper for sanitary pads.



Air India - “There's an Air about India”
Air India has unveiled a new chapter of its ‘There Is an Air About India’ campaign, featuring young cricketer Vaibhav Sooryavanshi. First launched in 2025 to capture the confidence, ambition and momentum of a rising India, the platform now shifts to a more personal narrative, highlighting the communities that support individuals on their journey to success. The digital film traces Sooryavanshi’s journey from a young boy with a dream to a rising star inspiring the nation, while incorporating stories and imagery from the wider world of Indian sport.

Clinic Plus - “Maa Ki Mazbooti”
Clinic Plus has unveiled a new Daughters’ Day film under its long-running #MeriBetiStrong platform, built around the thought ‘Maa ki Majboori nahi, Beti Hoti hai Maa ki Mazbooti’. The film explores how the strength and independence a mother instils in her daughter can eventually become the mother’s own source of courage. Set around a book launch, the story follows an author who points to her daughter when asked about the inspiration behind her collection of poems, before flashing back to the daughter’s childhood and their evolving relationship. As the daughter grows older, she begins to recognise the compromises her mother makes in a difficult marriage and encourages her to look beyond the expectation to simply adjust and endure. The mother eventually chooses to rebuild her life on her own terms, with her daughter emerging as her anchor.

Vadilal - “Jodi aisi ki nazar na lage”
Vadilal Industries and Parle Products have partnered to bring the Hide & Seek brand into the ice cream category with the launch of Vadilal Hide & Seek Ice Cream, supported by a nationwide integrated campaign titled ‘Jodi Aisi Ki Nazar Na Lage’. The campaign plays on the familiar idea of the evil eye to celebrate the unlikely yet complementary pairing of Hide & Seek’s chocolate chips and cookie crunch with Vadilal’s creamy ice cream, using the evil-eye emoji as a contemporary creative device. The digital film brings together the three elements (chocolate chips, cookie, and ice cream) to highlight the new combination while retaining Hide & Seek’s playful sense of discovery.

JSW Group - “India, in Every Move”
JSW Group has launched ‘Tere Sang Bharat’, an anthem campaign supporting Team India at the Asian Games 2026 and extending its ‘Rukna Nahin Hai’ platform. The campaign brings together 22 athletes across 11 sporting disciplines, highlighting the diverse journeys, ambitions and sacrifices of Indian athletes while focusing on the collective support they carry when they represent the country. The anthem film is built around the idea that an athlete wearing the India jersey carries the hopes, dreams and energy of millions of Indians with them, turning the campaign into a celebration of the connection between athletes and the nation. Through JSW Inspire, the Group is the Official Sports Performance and Lifestyle Partner of Team India for the 2026 season, with 51 JSW-backed athletes also representing India at the Asian Games. The campaign has been conceptualised by Ogilvy India.

LAVA - “Go With The Curve”
LAVA Mobiles has launched ‘Go With The Curve’, a new campaign for its Virat Curve 5G featuring actors Rohit Saraf and Pratibha Ranta. Moving away from conventional smartphone advertising centred on specifications and features, the campaign takes the form of a romantic music film that begins with a chance encounter between the two and unfolds into an imagined relationship journey spanning romance, adventure, conflict and connection. Set to the iconic Bollywood track ‘Yaar Bina Chain Kahan Re’, the film uses the visual language of a music video while integrating the Virat Curve 5G naturally into the story. Conceptualised with Sociowash Network, the campaign uses the chemistry between Saraf and Ranta to bring LAVA’s ‘Go With The Curve’ proposition to life, positioning the phone as part of the experience rather than the focus of a conventional product demonstration.

Škoda - “For The Restless”
Škoda Auto India and BBH India have launched ‘For the Restless’, an integrated campaign for the new Kylaq Sportline, the latest addition to the Kylaq range. Built around the restless energy of a generation that prefers to carve its own path, the campaign’s high-energy film opens with the rhythmic tapping of a foot before transitioning into the tap of the Kylaq Sportline’s accelerator pedal, linking impatience and anticipation with the thrill of driving. The film is set to Khasi rap by Meba, adding a contemporary, regional musical identity to the narrative. Currently live across digital, the campaign will also extend across television, print, and outdoor, highlighting the Sportline’s more dynamic character and positioning it for a new generation of SUV buyers.

Axis Bank - “open Ki Aadat”
Axis Bank has launched ‘open ki aadat pad jaayegi’, a new campaign for its digital banking proposition ‘open’, conceptualised and executed in partnership with Curativity. Moving beyond product-led communication, the campaign explores how convenience, personalisation and control can shape customers’ everyday expectations once they experience them through digital banking. The campaign comprises seven films, each placing the protagonist in familiar situations where she expects the same ease and control offered by the ‘open’ app, leading to the question, “Agar mera bank aisa kar sakta hai, toh aap kyun nahi?” and the sign-off, “Aadat toh padegi na?”

Myntra - “BFF”
Myntra has unveiled its Big Fashion Festival (BFF) campaign featuring brand ambassadors Alia Bhatt and Ranbir Kapoor, using exaggerated everyday situations to build anticipation for the shopping event, which goes live on October 8 with over 8 million styles across fashion, beauty and lifestyle. Built around the idea that almost anything can become a reason to shop when the deals are compelling enough, the campaign turns small, ordinary moments into elaborate and humorous scenarios. In Ranbir’s films, spotting an ex’s scrunchie during Diwali cleaning or offering a seat to an aunty at a wedding spirals into imagined life events and, eventually, wardrobe upgrades. Alia’s stories similarly transform moments such as being called “madam” by a cab driver, winning at cards, or even sneezing into elaborate reasons to shop.