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This October, Dhoom 2 met Louvre, AI got roasted, and Bill Gates went desi

October 2025 witnessed a textbook example of moment marketing around Halloween and the Louvre heist, with some anti-AI ads and Bill Gates' Indian series debut.

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Payal Navarkar
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October 2025 wasn’t just another month - it will be remembered as the month when the internet collectively blinked twice to confirm it wasn’t dreaming. It was a wild ride where Bill Gates dropped a “Jai Shri Krishna” on Indian television, a global audience watching the Bollywood movie Dhoom coming to life with a simpler storyline and no drama, with a gang of art thieves escaping the Louvre using a German lift and the brands turning it into ad gold even before the police could hold a press conference.

Brands this month tapped into what they call the textbook example of moment marketing with their campaigns and creative around Halloween and the Louvre heist. However, they weren’t just about selling anymore - they were about reacting, connecting, and belonging in moments that felt alive and unpredictable.

Content around the cricket player comeback somewhere proved, emotion and authenticity still cut deeper than any algorithm.

When heist became marketing gold

The month’s biggest metaphor for modern marketing came from an unlikely source - a crime scene. The Louvre museum theft in Paris, where thieves stole crown jewels in broad daylight using a Böcker freight lift, triggered a global media frenzy. For the brand, the lift manufacturer, it could have been a PR disaster. Instead, it became their moment of genius.

Within days, the brand released a post featuring their ladder lift propped against the museum, captioned, “If you’re in a hurry, Böcker Agilo carries up to 400 kg of treasures at 42 m per minute.” It was part confession, part performance ad - and it worked. A dry, B2B product suddenly became the hero of a global punchline, with humour turning technical specs into storytelling.

Fevicol quickly joined the conversation, offering its own take on the heist with the caption “This mission is impossible.” The image showed the stolen necklace sealed inside a Fevicol-coated glass case, referencing the Bollywood movie Dhoom 2. It was classic Fevicol - funny, local, and so unmistakably Indian that it became a cultural moment in itself.

Even IKEA Switzerland found a way to join the fun. Its minimal ad read: “Won’t protect your crown jewels either. But it will give them the right spotlight.”

And while most brands were improvising, McDonald’s had already staged its own heist, literally. Its ‘World Menu Heist’ campaign launched days before the robbery, featuring a cinematic global theft of McDonald’s menu items. When the real heist hit the news, the coincidence supercharged its visibility, proving that strong creative ideas can sometimes sync with the world in lucky and lucrative ways.

Bill Gates to act in Indian series

Just when we thought the month couldn’t get stranger, Bill Gates appeared on Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi 2, greeting Smriti Irani’s Tulsi Virani character with “Jai Shri Krishna.” The clip went viral within minutes - not for the technology or philanthropy it represented, but for the sheer surrealism of seeing one of the world’s richest men step into an Indian soap opera.

Behind the humour was a carefully designed campaign with purpose. Gates’ cameo was part of a collaboration with Irani to promote maternal and child health awareness - a cause championed by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Anti-AI thread

One of the more unexpected marketing trends of October 2025 has been a surge of anti-AI campaigns - where brands across consumer goods, fashion, and media are openly distancing themselves from artificial intelligence in their advertising.

As AI continues to shape industries and daily life, the public mood is split. A Pew Research study found that half of Americans (50%) are more concerned than excited about the growing presence of AI. Tapping into that skepticism, several brands have started using anti-AI messages as a creative hook - and audiences are responding.

Heineken, for instance, poked at the AI-wearable startup Friend, which had earlier launched a campaign promoting a talking AI necklace as a ‘reliable friend.’ The stunt drew public criticism for ‘profiting off loneliness.’ In response, Heineken rolled out its own ad reading, ‘The best way to make a friend is over a beer,’ featuring a beer-opener necklace that closely resembled Friend’s pendant.

Billboard reading 'The best way to make a friend is over a beer'

In fashion, Aerie took a stand on Instagram, declaring it would never use AI-generated models in its marketing, after H&M’s recent AI modelling campaign.

Indian publication The Hindu joined the movement with its billboard saying ‘News that can’t be bot’ under the Written by Journalist campaign, highlighting the value of human reporting in an era of AI news.

The Hindu and Talented remind readers what real news looks like in ‘Written by Journalists’

Even Polaroid entered the conversation earlier this year, plastering New York City billboards near Apple and Google stores with messages like “AI can’t generate sand between your toes.”

Together, these campaigns mark a growing shift in brand storytelling, one that celebrates human touch, real emotion, and creativity in an increasingly automated world.

The Ro-Ko comeback

The second half of the month belonged to one unified sentiment in India. The India-Australia ODI series became the emotional epicenter of the month, with fans treating it as the possible farewell tour of Virat Kohli and Rohit Sharma.

The narrative of unfinished business in Australia, coupled with their partnership in the final Sydney match, created an emotional peak. Their 168-run stand wasn’t just a sporting moment - it was closure, nostalgia, and history rolled into one.

Creators and brands created reels celebrating their camaraderie and expressing their anticipation and excitement for their comeback.

AI in Indian ad market

OpenAI and Perplexity AI started their marketing for India’s digital audience with different playbooks.

OpenAI went big and broad, launching ChatGPT’s first Out-of-Home campaign across Indian metros. The billboards featured simple, relatable prompts like Give me a beginner friendly running plan to train my first 5k. No jargon, no hype - just everyday usefulness. The campaign aimed to humanise AI for ordinary users.

Perplexity, meanwhile, opted for personality over scale. It collaborated with influencers, from a travel emergency story with Apoorva Mukhija to a hilarious ‘Gen Z vs Professor’ sketch with CarryMinati. When CarryMinati asked the app to translate ‘boomer’ into Hindi, it wasn’t just comedy; it was a moment of product demo disguised as entertainment.

Together, the campaigns revealed a clear truth: India isn’t just adopting global technology; it’s shaping how global technology talks.

Spooky Halloween madness

By late October, brands had traded global headlines for humour as Halloween arrived. But this year, India’s marketers didn’t settle for pumpkins and ghosts. Bingo! Mad Angles led the charge with ‘Desi Bhoot Bachao’, a satirical campaign demanding justice for Indian ghosts like dayans and chudails, who, the brand claimed, were being overshadowed by imported Draculas and zombies.

Dating apps like Tinder also joined the spooktacular conversation. It has launched Dating Scaries, a three-part video series that reimagines dating’s biggest nightmares, from what the Gen Z likes to call ghosting and gaslighting to situationships.

October 2025 wasn’t about viral hits alone. It was about marketing evolving into something more fluid, human, and instinctive - where humour, purpose, and emotion coexisted.

From a European art heist to a soap-opera cameo, from local ghosts to cricketing goodbyes, every story of the month shared a single thread - brands that listened, adapted, and spoke with authenticity.

rohit sharma comeback Louvre heist October trends Virat Kohli