6 of the Best Indian Independence Day Ads, Collected by The Best of Ads

Independence Day has given Indian advertising some of its most memorable films. The best ones use 15 August as a reason to talk about something larger than patriotism itself, from the prejudices we carry to the country children want to inherit.

These are six Independence Day ads collected by The Best of Ads that are worth watching again.

JSW Paints | Think Beautiful, 2023

JSW Paints began with two men painting the same wall. One used green. The other used saffron. People watching them immediately started attaching meaning to the colours and expecting trouble between the two painters. Then the frame widened. They were working together, with white between them, to create the Indian tricolour. The film turned something as basic as paint colour into a story about the assumptions people carry with them. Its closing thought, “Jab Rang Azaad Honge, Tabhi Toh Desh Khoobsurat Hoga,” asked people to free colours from the prejudices attached to them. The film was created by TBWA\India for Independence Day 2023.

UltraTech Cement | Mere Future Ka India, 2025

In 2025, UltraTech Cement handed the Independence Day brief to children. The brand asked kids across India to draw the country they wanted to grow up in through its #MereFutureKaIndia initiative. Their drawings imagined what India could become rather than looking back at what it had already achieved. That fit neatly into UltraTech’s larger “Banega Toh Badhega India” platform. A cement company spends its life talking about what gets built next, so asking the next generation for the blueprint made the Independence Day connection feel natural. The campaign also opened into a nationwide drawing contest, inviting parents to share their children’s visions online.

Parle-G | Armed Forces Film, 2018

Parle-G’s 2018 Independence Day film told the real-life story of soldier Ankit Singh and the people waiting for him at home. The film moved between the responsibility of serving at the border and the quieter relationships that continue while a soldier is away. It sat under Parle-G’s #YouAreMyParleG platform, which used the biscuit’s place in Indian life as a way of describing people who are always there when you need them. Here, that familiar packet became a tribute to the armed forces. The campaign did not need to turn Parle-G into something grander. It used something ordinary and deeply familiar to say thank you to someone doing something extraordinary.

JSW Paints | Think Beautiful, 2022

A year before its colour-prejudice film, JSW Paints used Independence Day to tackle a very different Indian habit. The 2022 film began with a neighbourhood wall repeatedly being spoiled despite signs asking people not to spit there. The answer eventually came through paint and the tricolour, turning a wall people ignored into one they suddenly respected. It was a small civic behaviour wrapped inside the brand’s “Think Beautiful” philosophy. The line “Jab soch sundar hogi, tabhi toh desh sundar hoga” made the point bigger than keeping one wall clean. A beautiful country, the film argued, begins with how people behave when nobody is forcing them to.

Liberty Shoes | In The Name of Liberty, 2019

Liberty Shoes used the word sitting inside its own brand name to ask a much less comfortable question. What exactly are people doing in the name of liberty? Narrated by Piyush Mishra, the 2019 film moved through everyday examples of people confusing freedom with the freedom to behave however they wanted. The writing was sarcastic, direct and deliberately uncomfortable. Instead of treating Independence Day as a celebration alone, the film connected liberty with responsibility, ownership and the consequences of our actions. Indian Ocean provided the music, while Mishra’s unmistakable voice gave the two-minute film its weight. A footwear brand called Liberty had found an Independence Day idea hiding in its own name.

Škoda India | Free the Soch, 2022

Škoda India’s Free the Soch asked whether political freedom means much when people are still trapped by the ideas society has handed them. Released for India’s 75th Independence Day, the two-minute film followed four people who had pushed past assumptions around age, gender and what someone like them was supposed to do. The message was simple. Sometimes the thing restricting a person is not a law or a physical barrier. It is an idea repeated often enough to feel like one. For a car brand, freedom could easily have meant an empty highway. Škoda instead made the journey about getting somewhere mentally first. Free the country, but free the thinking too.

Six very different ideas of freedom

None of these films treated Independence Day as one fixed emotion. JSW Paints talked about prejudice and civic behaviour. UltraTech handed the future to children. Parle-G looked towards soldiers. Liberty questioned how freedom is used, while Škoda questioned the thinking that can still hold people back.

That range is probably why these ads have lasted beyond the Independence Day they were made for.

Credits

Think Beautiful (2023) | JSW Paints, India. Agency: TBWA\India.

Mere Future Ka India (2025) | UltraTech Cement, India. Agency: Schbang.

Armed Forces Film (2018) | Parle-G, India. Campaign platform: #YouAreMyParleG.

Think Beautiful (2022) | JSW Paints, India. Agency: TBWA\India.

In The Name of Liberty (2019) | Liberty Shoes, India. Concept: Barun Prabhakar and Liberty Shoes marketing team. Production: Flamingo Digital. Director: Asad Ahmad. Copy: Nishant Singh. Voice-over: Piyush Mishra. Music: Indian Ocean.

Free the Soch (2022) | Škoda Auto India. Released for India’s 75th Independence Day.