- ET Shark Awards unveil shortlist for 8th edition.
- AI emerged as a key theme in this year’s campaigns.
- Brands focus on outcome-driven marketing and regional engagement.
The ET Shark Awards, a tentpole property of ETBrandEquity. com, has unveiled the shortlist for its 8th edition. Over the years, the ET Shark Awards have emerged as one of India’s most definitive benchmarks for marketing excellence, celebrating transformative campaigns and visionary brand leadership.This year, Varun Berry, former CEO, managing director, and vice chairman of Britannia Industries, chaired the awards. Kantar was the official knowledge partner for this year’s awards. They conducted meticulous due diligence on all entries to shortlist them for a rigorous three-city jury process.These shortlisted entries were then evaluated against predefined parameters by a panel of over 120 CMOs, marketing heads, and creative leads from leading brands in India. The jury panel represented some of India’s most admired brands and organisations across FMCG, retail, automotive, technology, media, healthcare, and consumer services sectors.The shortlisted entries were later evaluated by a panel of Grand Jury members, comprising India’s top CEOs, MDs, and founders.View the full shortlist here.What stood out this year?According to the jury members, this year many entries reflected a clear shift towards outcome-driven marketing. The entries also reflected that the Indian marketing landscape is becoming more intelligent, integrated and impact-driven. Many of them observed that brands are moving beyond vanity metrics such as reach and impressions, placing greater emphasis on business impact through meaningful measures like engagement, shares, and tangible commercial outcomes.Undoubtedly, Artificial Intelligence (AI) emerged as one of the strongest themes. Brands used AI not only to improve operational efficiency and media optimisation, but also to unlock new forms of storytelling, personalisation and customer engagement across the marketing funnel.The sharp trend was seeing legacy brands demonstrating impressive reinvention, combining fresh storytelling, sharper consumer insights, and innovative thinking to create clutter-breaking campaigns that felt contemporary and impactful.According to the jury, the strongest entries embraced true multimedia thinking. Campaigns that seamlessly integrated multiple channels and platforms delivered greater effectiveness, highlighting the value of cohesive 360-degree marketing in driving stronger business results.Consistency across channels also stood out as a defining trend. Rather than relying on a single platform, leading campaigns delivered cohesive storytelling across multiple touchpoints, reinforcing the importance of integrated, 360-degree communication.Experiential marketing continued to gain momentum, particularly around festive campaigns, while regionalisation became more pronounced. Brands are investing in deeper engagement across Tier II and Tier III markets through on-ground activations, roadshows and locally relevant storytelling.Contextual marketing and insight-led creativity stood out across many shortlisted entries. Many campaigns proved that a compelling consumer insight, executed creatively, can deliver outsized impact even with modest budgets, reaffirming that great ideas remain at the heart of effective marketing.
