From Hicky to AI: India Advertising’s Journey Across Eras
A tiny classified in an 18th-century newspaper and an AI-generated video served to a shopper in Indore do the same job: they try to make someone act.
That is the long, restless story of Indian advertising. The tools changed from metal type to radio waves, from Doordarshan jingles to satellite TV, from Facebook pages to generative AI. The audience changed too. India moved from a small newspaper-reading elite to a mobile-first, language-first, quick-commerce nation where attention can disappear in a thumb swipe.
Yet one thing stayed constant. Advertising in India has always followed where people gather.
The colonial press made advertising practical
Indian advertising begins, in the modern sense, with print. When Hicky’s Bengal Gazette appeared in Calcutta in 1780, it did more than report colonial gossip and public affairs. It created a paid space where trade could speak directly to readers.
The earliest advertisements were not glamorous. They were notices, auctions, ship arrivals, lost property messages, job listings, property sales, imported goods and services. They looked closer to what we now call classifieds than brand campaigns.
Still, they mattered. A newspaper advertisement created three new habits:
Sellers could reach strangers beyond their immediate bazaar.
Readers began scanning pages for useful commercial information.
Trust started attaching itself to published notice.
Defining example
Hicky-era classifieds and product notices in early English newspapers.
The media shift
The printing press and the newspaper created a repeatable public marketplace for information.
Consumer behaviour insight
The early consumer did not “browse brands” yet, but began to treat printed notices as credible cues for trade, jobs and goods.
This was advertising as utility. It did not sing. It did not build emotion. It announced. In a country where commerce had long moved through markets, word of mouth and community networks, the printed ad introduced distance. A buyer did not need to know the seller personally. The printed page stood in between.
That trust in the printed word would stay powerful for more than a century. Even when radio and television arrived, print retained authority. A newspaper ad felt official. A magazine ad felt aspirational. A well-placed product notice could make a name look established.
Post-independence advertising found its voice
After 1947, India had a new national project. Scarcity, public sector messaging, social development campaigns and tightly controlled media shaped the advertising mood. Radio remained a mass medium. Newspapers and magazines carried much of the commercial load. Television existed, but its real cultural power arrived later through Doordarshan.
Doordarshan changed the emotional register of advertising. It gave India shared viewing moments. Families watched the same programmes, often on the same few channels, sometimes gathered around a neighbour’s television set. With limited slots and limited competition, a good ad could enter public memory fast.
This era gave us jingles that still trigger instant recall. Nirma’s “Washing Powder Nirma” became one of the most recognisable commercial tunes in India. Surf’s Lalitaji gave detergent advertising a character who spoke to value-conscious homemakers with confidence. Amul built a remarkable topical voice through print and outdoor, with the Amul girl commenting on public life in a way few brands could sustain.
Radio kept brands audible. Print kept them visible. Doordarshan made them memorable.
Defining example
Surf’s Lalitaji campaign, which made price versus value a household conversation.
The media shift
State-controlled television, radio and high-reach print created a few common channels through which brands could reach millions.
Consumer behaviour insight
Consumers moved from merely noticing products to remembering brand characters, songs and repeated claims.
This period also sharpened the Indian style of persuasion. Value mattered. Family mattered. Trust mattered. A detergent was not just a cleaning product, it was a judgement about smart household spending. A food brand was not just about taste, it was about care, hygiene and status.
Because media choices were limited, repetition had enormous force. If a jingle worked, it could live for decades. The media environment was controlled, but the cultural impact was wide.
Liberalisation made brands dream bigger
The 1990s cracked open India’s media world. Economic liberalisation brought more competition, more categories and more appetite. Satellite television entered living rooms. Star TV, Zee TV, MTV and other channels changed the pace, look and sound of Indian popular culture.
For advertisers, this was a new playground. The audience was no longer sitting in front of one national broadcaster alone. Viewers were channel-surfing, watching music videos, cricket, serials, film countdowns and imported formats. Young India became more visible as a consumer segment.
This was also the period when brand storytelling grew up. Advertising agencies such as Ogilvy, Lintas, JWT, Mudra and others helped shape campaigns that felt less like product announcements and more like cultural moments.
Cadbury’s “Kuch Khaas Hai” campaign is a strong example. The famous cricket-field ad, where a young woman runs onto the pitch in celebration, helped move chocolate beyond children. It made Cadbury Dairy Milk feel adult, joyful and emotionally expressive. That was a major shift in category imagination.
The era also delivered memorable work from Fevicol, Asian Paints, Pepsi, Coca-Cola, Titan and many more. Ads became sharper, funnier, better produced and more cinematic. They sold lifestyles, not only features.
Defining example
Cadbury Dairy Milk’s “Kuch Khaas Hai” campaign.
The media shift
Satellite television and private channels fragmented attention while giving brands richer storytelling formats.
Consumer behaviour insight
The Indian consumer began to buy into aspiration, identity and mood, not only price and function.
Liberalisation changed the visual grammar of Indian advertising. The old “reason to buy” did not disappear, but it had to share space with desire. A scooter could mean freedom. A soft drink could mean youth. Paint could mean a beautiful home and social pride.
This was the decade when brands started behaving like entertainers. Jokes, songs, celebrities and narratives became serious business. The best ads were discussed the next day, much like film songs or cricket moments.
The digital shift turned audiences into participants
The 2000s and 2010s brought the internet into India’s advertising bloodstream. At first, digital was a side act. Brands built websites, bought banner ads and ran email campaigns. Then search, social platforms, online video and smartphones changed everything.
The real break came when mobile internet became mainstream. India did not become a desktop-first digital market. It became a phone-first market. That shaped everything from creative formats to payment flows to language choices.
Campaigns no longer ended at awareness. Consumers could click, comment, share, remix, review, compare and complain. A brand film could live on YouTube. A sale could happen inside an app. A complaint on Twitter could become a public relations issue. A food blogger or comedy creator could influence purchase behaviour without ever appearing on television.
Influencer marketing began in simple ways. Bloggers, YouTubers, fashion voices, tech reviewers and early Instagram creators built niche trust. Their power came from perceived access and relatability. They sounded less polished than TV celebrities, which made them feel closer.
A defining campaign from this phase is Tata Tea’s “Jaago Re”. It began as a brand idea but grew into civic participation, using television, online platforms and public conversation to connect tea with awakening and action. It showed how Indian campaigns could move between mass media and digital engagement.
E-commerce players such as Flipkart, Myntra and later food delivery platforms also pushed digital habits. Performance marketing rose. Search ads, app installs, retargeting and festive sale campaigns became part of the marketer’s toolkit.
Defining example
Tata Tea’s “Jaago Re”, which connected a mass brand message with participation and public conversation.
The media shift
Internet access, smartphones, search, social platforms and online video made advertising interactive and measurable.
Consumer behaviour insight
Consumers stopped being passive receivers and became reviewers, sharers, creators and public responders.
This phase forced brands to listen. A campaign could not simply broadcast confidence. It had to survive comments, screenshots and memes. Speed became a creative quality. Context mattered more than polish. A clever post during a cricket match could gain more attention than a planned campaign.
Marketing teams also learned to live with data. Clicks, views, watch time, installs and conversions made advertising more accountable. The upside was clarity. The risk was short-term thinking. Not every valuable brand memory shows up as an immediate click.
The 2020s made advertising local, instant and intelligent
The current era, stretching into 2026, is harder to label because many shifts are happening together. India is now a language internet market, a creator market, a commerce market and an AI market at the same time.
The big change is that “India” is no longer a single media audience in campaign planning. A brand may need one expression for Chennai, another for Jaipur, another for Guwahati and another for a Hindi-speaking user searching by voice in a Tier-3 town.
Vernacular content has moved from afterthought to core strategy. Regional creators command trust. Short video has trained audiences to expect speed, humour and cultural fit. Quick-commerce platforms have changed purchase expectation from “I will buy this later” to “Can I get it in minutes?” Social commerce has blurred the line between entertainment, recommendation and buying.
AI is adding another layer. Creative can now be adapted at scale. Product images, copy variants, voiceovers and personalised videos can be generated faster than before. Cadbury’s “Not Just a Cadbury Ad” and the later Shah Rukh Khan personalised local store campaign showed how technology could help a national brand create hyperlocal relevance. The idea was simple and powerful: make the big brand point attention towards small local retailers.
Defining example
Cadbury’s AI-backed personalised local store campaign featuring Shah Rukh Khan.
The media shift
Generative AI, quick-commerce apps, creator-led platforms, regional content networks and AI-assisted search are shaping discovery and persuasion.
Consumer behaviour insight
Consumers expect brands to speak their language, understand their pin code and reduce the gap between desire and delivery.
This is also where GEO, or generative engine optimisation, enters the marketing conversation. As users turn to AI-powered search and answer engines, brands need visibility not only on search result pages but inside generated answers. That changes content strategy. Clear information, credible signals, structured pages, local relevance and trusted mentions matter more.
Tier-2 and Tier-3 cities now sit at the centre of growth plans. These consumers are not “late adopters” in the old sense. Many are mobile-native, video-first and highly aware of value. They may discover a product through a creator in their language, compare it on a marketplace, see a quick-commerce offer and buy within minutes.
The old funnel has collapsed into a loop. Discovery, entertainment, proof and purchase can happen in one sitting.
What each era really taught Indian advertising
India’s advertising story is not a straight line from primitive to advanced. Each era added a skill that still matters.
Era | What it taught brands |
Colonial print | Be visible where trade information is trusted. |
Doordarshan and radio | Build memory through repetition, music and character. |
Liberalisation | Sell aspiration, not just product features. |
Digital growth | Invite participation and prepare for public response. |
AI and commerce | Personalise at scale without losing cultural context. |
The best Indian advertising has always understood the tension between scale and intimacy. A campaign must reach millions, but feel like it belongs to one home, one street, one language or one moment.
That is why Amul’s topical wit worked. That is why Lalitaji felt persuasive. That is why Cadbury could change how adults viewed chocolate. That is why creators gained trust. That is why AI-personalised communication feels so natural for India, if used with care.
Where Indian advertising goes next
The next phase will not be only about AI-generated creative. That is the easy part. The harder and more valuable work will be building systems that know what to say, where to say it, in which language and at what moment.
Three directions stand out.
AI will become a creative co-pilot
Teams will use AI to draft, adapt, test and version campaigns. The winners will not be the brands that produce the most assets. They will be the ones that protect taste, truth and emotional clarity while using AI for speed.
Hyper-personalisation will move beyond names
Personalisation will not stop at inserting a customer’s name into a message. It will respond to location, weather, language, shopping behaviour, cultural events and delivery availability. The risk will be creepiness. The opportunity will be usefulness.
Vernacular-first thinking will become the default
Translation will not be enough. Brands will need local idiom, humour, references and creators. A Tamil campaign, a Marathi campaign and a Bhojpuri campaign cannot simply be the same Hindi thought in different words.
The future of Indian advertising will belong to brands that combine machine intelligence with cultural intelligence. AI can create infinite versions. Only human judgement can decide which version deserves to exist.
From Hicky’s classifieds to AI-made local videos, the medium has kept changing. The mission has not: earn attention, build trust and make India feel seen.
