Traditionally, brands hired creators to appear in ads, smile, deliver a line, maybe dance a little. But a new current is running through Indian advertising: creators aren’t just the faces anymore, they’re becoming the minds. Recently, content creator Bhuvan Bam teamed up with HUL’s Kissan for an ad campaign that gave the brand’s Indian chutney range a full-blown desi makeover. Packed with Bam’s trademark humour and familiar characters, the film leaned into a creator-led storytelling style rather than a conventional brand script. Unsurprisingly, it became a talking point across the media circuit - less for selling chutney, and more for showing how creator voice, when left intact, can turn a simple product push into pop-culture conversation.
Similarly, Samay Raina’s collaboration with Airlearn, Unacademy’s language-learning app, doesn’t just feature him; it’s written by him. The film unfolds inside an airplane, where a routine flight announcement spirals into a multilingual meltdown. Passengers demand announcements in their own languages; chaos brews; and Samay steps in, suavely translating in Marathi and Kannada, languages he somehow knows.
Then comes the kicker: a Tamil-speaking passenger protests, prompting Samay to say that he’ll crack Tamil in ‘two to three days’ on Airlearn.
The tension peaks, and Samay has to call for reinforcements. Who walks in for backup? Comedian Kunal Kamra, making what is possibly his first-ever brand appearance, considering how most brands tend to avoid his brand of political comedy. What makes this even more striking is that the campaign was fully scripted by Samay himself and produced with high production value by One Hand Clap.
A comedian writing an entire ad film? Not common. But Samay isn’t the only one flipping the script.
In another example of this creator-led creative wave, Balraj Ghai, owner of The Habitat, Samay’s friend, and the internet’s resident ‘gentleman,’ crafted a promo for District by Zomato to announce Rolling Loud India, an international hip hop music festival.
The ad opens with people aggressively trashing The Habitat, prompting Balraj to deadpan that this isn’t the safe place for such energy, better to unleash it at the Rolling Loud moshpit instead.
(Trivia: A mosh pit is an area in front of a concert stage where audience members engage in energetic and physical dancing, including jumping, pushing, and shoving, especially at punk, metal, and high-energy shows).
In this case too no ad agency was involved; it was just written by Ghai and a few of his stand-up comedian friends. No agency. No pitch meeting. Just a creator writing what he knows best, and a brand trusting him enough to run with it.
But why are brands trusting comedians rather than copywriters or agencies who have been handling this for years, what’s driving this trend? Is it authenticity, reach or change in what audiences find persuasive?
Anadi Sah, National Creative Director, tghtr, says the shift isn’t entirely new, but it has accelerated with the growth of comedy shows that have created a fresh pool of talent with far wider reach. He highlights that now brands are exploring new ways to engage audiences who respond better to authentic, entertaining content that feels raw, unpolished and very different from traditional ads built around familiar celebrity faces.
“Traditional ads are often pushed onto timelines and many users skip or block them. Influencer marketing offers similar outcomes for brands, and in this case, the influencers are stand-up comedians. But the rules of engagement change depending on the context. This doesn’t indicate a loss of trust in agencies,” Sah says. He highlights, “When brands work with established advertising agencies, they expect strict adherence to guidelines, thorough research before campaigns go live, and significant media investments to ensure amplification.”
Sah adds that agencies still play a critical role in building brands, something that goes far beyond producing one-off, attention-grabbing content. A fast-moving creative outfit cannot replace an industry that has shaped culture for decades and built global, multi-billion-dollar brands.
He mentions that agencies rely on strong consumer insights to drive business impact, protect long-term brand equity, and ensure that short-term marketing ideas fit within a larger strategic framework. He notes that agencies and creators have worked together before, with each side bringing a distinct set of strengths. Among all stakeholders, agencies remain the most open to exploring new ideas to solve business challenges. According to Sah, humour-driven content featuring comedians can become even more effective when agencies help craft the right narrative and amplify it through the right channels.
Anupam Gurnani, Chief Marketing Officer, IndoBevs, believes the role of comedians and creators is less about replacement and more about orchestration. He views creator-led ideation as an input rather than a substitute, stressing that agencies continue to play a central role in strategy, planning, and brand governance. “Creators add value by stress-testing ideas against real cultural behaviour and consumption patterns,” he notes.
According to Gurnani, the future lies in hybrid models where brands lead with conviction, agencies provide structure, and creators bring cultural fluency. What we’re witnessing, he adds, is a reset of traditional models—agencies remain vital as strategic curators and enablers, while creators are evolving into full-spectrum partners shaping ideas, execution, and culture. The most impactful campaigns, he says, will emerge from this convergence of rigour, relevance, and belief.
BroCode, the beer brand from IndoBevs, has partnered with stand-up comedian Aashish Solanki to launch a roast series titled BroCode Roast. The six-episode series premiered on YouTube and features a lineup of comedians as guest participants.
He adds that humour has long been central to the brand’s strategy, and comedians are simply one of the most effective ways to deliver it today. With comedy in India scaling significantly in both reach and influence over the past decade, comedians have become efficient partners for driving cultural relevance at scale.
From a brand perspective, he says the starting point is always the objective, not the creator. There is no one-size-fits-all approach formats are chosen based on what best serves the brand. In BroCode’s case, roast comedy worked because it naturally aligned with the brand’s bold, high-energy, unapologetic personality, amplifying its voice rather than defining it.
Viraj Sheth, Co-Founder and CEO, Monk Entertainment, also says that Brands are far more comfortable now letting creators lead the storytelling. They’ve seen what happens when you let creative people do what they do best. We’ve seen this first-hand with campaigns like Urban Company with Gaurav Kapur or Ponds with Rahul Dua, where the brief was simple but the output was entirely creator-led.
He says that the comedians are natural storytellers. They understand rhythm, timing, and relatability. That makes them ideal for turning brand messages into something people actually want to watch.
Sheth believes that this model will not challenge agency but it’s more of a collaboration opportunity than a conflict. Agencies bring scale and structure, while creators bring cultural instinct. When those worlds meet, the output feels sharper and more human. We’ve seen this in our own campaigns, where involving creators early makes the tone feel less like advertising and more like conversation. That’s where the industry is headed.
Kshitij Kaushik, Founder, The Germ, says several factors have come together to make comedians increasingly attractive creative partners for brands. Humour, he notes, has become a major storytelling tool, particularly for younger audiences. In a highly polarised, fast-paced environment, humour offers relief - a way to communicate without sounding preachy and to show vulnerability without losing credibility.
Kaushik acknowledges that some brands will choose to work directly with comedians, and he sees no issue with that. However, he points out that agencies still play a crucial role in shaping long-term brand coherence. “Writing and crafting narratives is core to what we do, but agencies are the ones who bring all elements together under one creative umbrella,” he says. This includes ensuring strategic alignment, design consistency, and a broader narrative structure.
He adds that if a campaign benefits from letting a comedian write their own lines or define the tone, then that is the right approach. Even in such cases, the agency ensures the work fits meaningfully within the brand’s world. At the same time, he believes agencies should remain confident in their own strengths, rigorous thinking, systems, strategy, and cultural context, which many clients continue to rely on.
On whether comedians can evolve into creative directors, Kaushik is cautious. A creative director’s job, he explains, goes far beyond cracking a funny script. It requires emotional range, the ability to maintain alignment across brand, strategic, and creative lenses, and experience in scaling ideas across campaigns and platforms. Comedians, for now, operate largely within one emotional bandwidth: comedy, satire, and humour.
“While humour is powerful, brands also need sensitivity, seriousness, empathy, and inspiration,” he says, pointing out that categories such as healthcare, finance, parenting, and insurance demand emotional tones far beyond punchlines.
Kaushik believes it may be premature to expect comedians to step into traditional creative director roles immediately. However, he doesn’t rule out the possibility. As the industry evolves, some comedians may broaden their storytelling range and eventually grow into those positions. For now, he sees them as valuable collaborators rather than replacements.
KV Sridhar, aka Pops, Global Creative Officer at Nihilent Limited, believes traditional advertising isn’t under threat; creative talent has simply found new routes.
He explains that earlier, the most creative minds joined advertising, were trained there, and later moved into journalism, cinema, or management. With limited creators and a captive audience, agencies had to house all kinds of talent.
“Today, digital media has opened endless platforms,” he says. “Creators can directly express themselves on social media, so they no longer feel the need to enter the advertising field they once used as a stepping stone.”
But Pops points out the gap: when creators bypass agencies, they often miss the fundamentals of brand building, understanding a brand’s meaning, tone, and how messaging links to sales. Agencies teach the science of advertising: who you’re speaking to, what you’re saying, and why.
Comedians may not replace creative directors anytime soon and perhaps they never should. But they’ve unlocked something the industry has been chasing for years: honesty, rhythm, and an instinctive sense of what actually makes people care.
The smartest brands will be the ones that stop treating creators and agencies as two separate choices. Because the future of advertising isn’t agency-led or creator-led, it’s co-created. It’s built by people who understand culture and people who understand brands, working side by side. That’s when the magic happens.
