Best new creative ads: Dhan ki bhasha, SAP, Noice and more
A weekly compilation of best new creative ads is my small tribute to ad agency teams. Ad agencies are expected to produce clutter-breaking work even when briefs aren’t clear, approval process is unfair and budgets aren’t available. In that context, getting noticed itself is a big win. This week my curated list includes ads from Dhan, a stock investment brand in India, a global campaign from SAP and more.
Dhan: the language of money
India is not just diverse, it celebrates pluralism. Across any category – be it faith, language, food or music there exists vast differences and yet a common thread that binds it all together. Many brands have anchored their story around this idea in the past usually through a montage of visuals from across the country, held together by stirring music or a jingle. In fact the format has become a cliche.
A new brand film for Dhan, an investment platform takes a similar route but managed to hold my attention for 8 min through its narrative style and the central idea. The ad conveys that there’s a common understanding of money across India across many traditions and beliefs. Small gestures such as receiving an extra ₹1 as shagun, saving in a ‘gullak‘ (piggy bank) before opening a fixed deposit and giving one’s first salary in mother’s hands are likely to resonate across India. In that context, many Indians would have witnessed the concept of ‘boni‘ – the first sale of the day at any street vendor or small shop. Usually they prefer receiving cash for such a transaction and the money is accepted with much reverence and placed in the cash box after touching it to one’s eyes in respect. The idea of a tourist guide as a sootradhar allows for a ‘tour’ of many cities across India and the story to be told.
A minor quibble: it’s 2026 and why can we get regional language pronunciations right? The dialogues supposedly spoken in Kannada are obviously not delivered by a native Kannada speaker. And it’s either ‘Bengaluru’ or ‘Bangalore’, not ‘Bangaluru’.
Agency: Spring Marketing Capital
Noice: noise is coming
‘When you have nothing to say, sing it’ was David Ogilvy’s rather unkind comment on use of jingles in ads. Silly humour on a likely trivial ‘anchor’ idea is another route adopted by brands – usually in the fun, instinctive purchase categories. Noice is a Swiggy owned brand with a range of food products pushed through on the app. The brand name is a play on ‘nice’ and there’s much to go on in terms of product story or features. Zany humour triggered by a very ‘Indian English’ phrase, ‘noise is coming’ brings out the laughs.
Agency: Enormous
BMW AGMC: Get even with corners
Automobile advertising is mostly predictable: shots of speeding cars, close ups of exterior and interiors. Something about performance and so on. So much so that one can replace one car’s logo with another. A new ad for BMW in the Middle East breaks category clutter by focusing on one benefit and delivering it in a style that is unlike a typical car ad. Usually ‘corner control’ is highlighted as a feature whereas this ad paints ‘corners’ as the enemy. The film, played out like a courtroom drama paints ‘corners’ as a villain that is brought to book by the BMW.
Agency: Serviceplan
HK Vitals: skin radiance
Yet another ad that breaks category codes and leads you down a path that leaves you guessing about the context, the upcoming reveal and twist in the end. Loved it.
Agency: Enormous
SAP: The beginning of better
Many memorable ad campaigns appeal to us thanks to a refreshing perspective abotu a problem or a sharp summary of the central story. We saw that with ‘make your CFO fall in love with your CMO’ for a B2B ad streaming solution. A new ad for SAP positions the company as enabling ‘autonomous enterprises’ (‘The Autonomous Enterprise is the future of business—where people set direction and AI executes, with governance at every step) and tells the story of how it will be the end of a familiar reaction to path breaking discoveries and services. When television was invented it was seen as the ‘end of radio’ (remember ‘video killed the radio star’). Emails were seen as delivering the death knell to printers…and so on. The ad uses humour to ‘portray’ word changing events in history segueing into the promise that the automonous enterprise is not the end of anything but the beginning of better.
Agency: BBDO
Apple: Relax, it’s an iPhone
The durability and scratch resistant features of an iPhone has been presented in the past as ‘license’ to use it almost ‘dangerously’ without a phone case – allowing it to be slid down a table for example. A new outdoor series captures that benefit in a static format pretty dramatically.
Agency: in-house
Audi: brand idents
It’s fascinating that advertising gets to tell stories in 30-seconds or thereabouts. Brand idents (usually seen in the context of announcing sponsorship associations of a brand with a programme on TV) are another set of creatives that pack in so much in 5-10 seconds. Here are a few sponsorship idents to announce Audi’s association with F1 on Sky Sports.
Audi’s engineering is reimagined in the iconic rings, a world where you can see all the sophisticated materials and mechanisms carefully interacting with composition, light, and animation. The films transform carbon-fibre waves, polished ceramic and the mechanisms of engineering, connecting the worlds of Formula 1 and Audi RS performance models.
Agency: FutureDeluxe
Which one was your favourite? Do comment in.