What do tongue twisters, boneless chicken, colourful monuments, and a kid named Opus have in common? Nope, it’s not the setup for a weird joke, it’s just the wildly diverse world of brand campaigns in India right now.
From AI-powered voice games on feature phones in rural UP to an emotional relook at what doctors really mean to us, brands are ditching the boring and showing up with big hearts, bold ideas, and a whole lot of local flair. Whether it’s Centerfruit turning a phone call into a language game, KFC bringing back TV’s favorite sleuths for a crispy “scam,” or Danone getting real about kids’ nutrition, there’s a clear trend: tell stories that stick, but don’t forget to stir some smiles (or tears) along the way.
In this roundup, we dive into seven campaigns that prove marketing in India isn’t just alive, it’s thinking, feeling, rhyming, rhyming again, and sometimes, repainting national monuments.
Centerfruit:
Centerfruit by Perfetti Van Melle India, in partnership with WPP, BharatGPT.ai, and Google Cloud, launched the ‘Centerfruit Tongue Twister Challenge’, a voice-based GenAI campaign targeting rural Uttar Pradesh where internet and digital access are limited. The campaign reaches communities without the need for smartphones, apps, or internet, making it accessible even on basic feature phones.
As part of its ongoing Kaisi Jeebh Laplapayee campaign, Centerfruit introduced a hyper-local Voice AI that calls users directly on their phones. With a simple callback, users engage in tongue-twister challenges while speaking in their own dialects. This transforms a basic phone call into a fun, gamified brand experience filled with laughter, linguistic flair, and regional pride.
It is a highly scalable voice infrastructure powered by Google Cloud. It allows millions of users to interact with the brand in real time without apps, internet, or data- just a phone call. The system uses BharatGPT, a language model optimized for Indian languages, to convert speech to text and generate witty, brand-aligned responses.
The campaign also utilises Google’s Gemini AI to evaluate user pronunciation, providing live scoring on clarity and pace. Thanks to Google Cloud Platform’s fast networking, users receive near-instant feedback, making the experience highly responsive.
Beyond the tongue twisters, users can ask questions through BharatGPT.ai’s Ask Engine and get instant answers in their regional dialects, creating a fully interactive and conversational experience that connects deeply with rural audiences.
Dexogrow:
Danone India’s Dexogrow campaign, ‘Desh Dimag Se Banta Hai’, puts a spotlight on a critical but often overlooked issue of iron deficiency and its impact on children’s cognitive development.
The campaign tells a relatable story of parents navigating the school admission process. Faced with unethical options, they choose to rely on their child’s merit and mental strength, reinforcing the idea that true success should come from cognitive ability, not connections or shortcuts.
What sets the campaign apart is its everyday realism, grounding a nutritional message in a social situation that many families face. Instead of pushing product benefits directly, it builds a compelling narrative around values, parenting, and hope for a better future. Dexogrow’s role is subtly integrated as a science-backed solution, offering Iron Biotics for better absorption, along with 36 essential nutrients, all without added sugar or artificial additives.
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KFC:
KFC’s latest digital-first campaign brings back India’s beloved investigative trio of Shivaji Satam, Dayanand Shetty, and Narendra Gupta, for a fun twist on mystery-solving. This time, they’re not chasing criminals but investigating a deal that seems too good to be true: seven Boneless Chicken Strips and two Hot & Crispy pieces for just Rs. 299.
At the heart of the campaign is a clever mix of nostalgia and humor, using the team’s iconic catchphrase “ye toh scam hai!” to build curiosity. The core of the campaign is to highlight value for money in a crowded QSR market, positioning KFC’s combo as a surprisingly real and budget-friendly option. Through witty storytelling and a nostalgic cast, the brand delivers its message in an engaging, memorable way.
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St. Jude India ChildCare Centres:
St. Jude India ChildCare Centres’ “Renu Vs The City,” is a moving campaign that highlights the harsh reality faced by thousands of families who travel from small towns to cities like Mumbai for their child’s cancer treatment. The campaign centers on Renu Kadam, a young girl living on the footpath outside a cancer hospital, showing how lack of safe accommodation adds to the suffering of families already battling a life-threatening illness.
Told through Renu’s perspective, the film captures the daily struggles, finding shelter, maintaining hygiene, and accessing basic facilities, all while undergoing cancer treatment. Many families, overwhelmed by these living conditions, are forced to give up and return home, abandoning treatment.
The creativity of the campaign lies in its authentic storytelling. Rather than using statistics or staged testimonials, it paints a raw, human portrait of the crisis. The choice to frame the story through a child’s point of view makes it both intimate and heartbreaking. Viewers aren’t just told about the lack of safe housing, they feel the discomfort, fear, and isolation that come with it.
Swisse:
Swisse, Australia’s leading wellness brand, is out with a fresh new campaign in India to introduce its Magnesium range, and it’s doing things a little differently.
Forget the typical wellness clichés. Instead of green smoothies, yoga mats, and whispered voiceovers, Swisse teamed up with creative agency ting and actor Aditya Roy Kapur to keep things easy, breezy, and real. The campaign taps into Aditya’s naturally relaxed vibe to spotlight simple but powerful benefits like better sleep and muscle recovery, all served with a wink and a smile.
The idea was to make the message feel like a fun, inside moment between Aditya and the audience, rather than a lecture, so it sticks better. The goal was to make wellness accessible, showing that you don’t need to be a health guru to care about your well-being. This campaign proves you can make people think and still make them smile.
With this launch, Swisse and ting are flipping the script on wellness marketing, making it more personal, more playful, and a lot more human.
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Practo
On National Doctor’s Day, digital healthcare platform Practo launched the #WhoIsADoctor campaign to highlight a side of doctors that often goes unnoticed. While people usually see doctors as professionals who diagnose and prescribe, this campaign shines a light on the everyday human care and support they provide beyond their clinical roles.
The campaign is a short film featuring real patients sharing stories about how doctors were there for them during personal and family emergencies. The film offers a heartfelt and emotional look at the role doctors play, not just in treatment, but in offering comfort, reassurance, and healing.
The campaign was shared widely across Practo’s social media channels and with its network of over 5 lakh doctors, inviting everyone to rethink and appreciate who a doctor truly is.
Birla:
Birla Opus Paints, part of the Aditya Birla Group’s Grasim Industries, has launched a new national campaign called “Celebrating Colours of India”, building on their core philosophy of ‘Duniya Ko Rang Do’ (Bring Colour to the World). The campaign breathes new life into India’s timeless monuments, starting with the iconic Gateway of India, showing how colour can spark pride, beauty, and transformation across the country.
This campaign is an evolution of the original story that introduced the animated Opus Boy, who returns to colour the world around him and spread joy. By reimagining famous monuments in vibrant hues and patterns, the campaign celebrates not just physical transformation but also a shift in perspective. It invites people to see familiar landmarks through a fresh, colourful lens.
The film opens with a photographer struggling to get people excited about capturing photos with the Gateway of India. Seeing this, the Opus Boy brings a splash of colour to the monument, instantly captivating everyone’s attention. This burst of vibrancy not only revitalizes the monument but also inspires joy and creativity, reminding viewers that colour can transform more than just walls- it can transform the way we see the world.
