What Tanmay Bhat's Advertising Philosophy Teaches Indian Small Businesses About Running Better Ads

Tanmay Bhat's Advertising Philosophy Teaches Indian Small Businesses About Running Better Ads

Tanmay Bhat and his Moonshot co-founder Devaiah Bopanna have produced some of the most talked-about advertising campaigns in Indian marketing history - CRED's Rahul Dravid ads, Lenskart's Karan Johar campaign, Swiggy Instamart's Chawal series, and Bold Care's Teleshopping parody among them. In 2025, Moonshot won Independent Agency of the Year at the Good Ads Matter Awards.

Their work is known for large budgets, A-list celebrities, and production quality that most small businesses cannot replicate. But the underlying principles behind why their campaigns work - consistency, experimentation, and audience understanding - apply at every budget level.

This article breaks down what those principles actually are, what Tanmay has said about them in verified interviews, and how Indian SMBs can apply the same thinking to their own paid ad campaigns.

Tanmay Bhat and Moonshot - verified background

Tanmay Bhat is a comedian, content creator, and advertising creative who co-founded All India Bakchod (AIB) as a YouTube channel in 2013 along with Gursimran Khamba, Rohan Joshi, and Ashish Shakya. AIB became one of India's most influential early internet comedy brands.

In 2023, Tanmay co-founded Moonshot alongside Devaiah Bopanna - an advertising creative who had previously worked at Ogilvy India, DDB Mudra, and Lowe Lintas before joining AIB. Moonshot is a creative advertising agency. In 2025, it won Independent Agency of the Year at the Good Ads Matter Awards, India, taking home 2 golds, 2 silvers, and a bronze for the Swiggy Instamart Chawal campaign, and additional awards for Bold Care and CRED.

Moonshot's verified client campaigns include CRED (Rahul Dravid), Lenskart (Karan Johar and Peyush Bansal), FireBoltt (MS Dhoni and MC Stan), Swiggy Instamart, Bold Care, Shark Tank India Season 3, Smallcase, Disney+ Hotstar, and OYO among others.

The honest gap - what Moonshot does vs what Indian SMBs can do

It is important to be direct about this before drawing any parallels: Moonshot works with large brands, significant budgets, and A-list celebrities. A kirana store in Surat or a coaching centre in Hyderabad cannot replicate a CRED campaign featuring Rahul Dravid.

What Indian SMBs can take from Tanmay and Moonshot's work is not the production scale - it is the underlying thinking. Specifically, three principles that Tanmay has spoken about in documented interviews apply directly to how any business should approach paid advertising, regardless of budget.

Three principles that work at any budget

1. Consistency builds brands - not one-off campaigns

In a podcast with Ankur Warikoo on Building It Up with Bertelsmann, Tanmay discussed how brands make the mistake of running two or three campaigns a year and expecting brand-building results. His documented position is that consistent presence over time - not individual viral moments - is what creates brand recognition.

"Running two or three campaigns in a year would not necessarily build a powerful brand."

- Tanmay Bhat · Building It Up with Bertelsmann podcast, sourced via Medium

For Indian SMBs, this is directly applicable. Businesses that run ads for two weeks, stop, then start again three months later are not building anything. The businesses that maintain consistent paid presence - even on small budgets - compound their visibility over time.

2. Virality is a process, not a purchase

Tanmay has spoken in multiple documented interviews about a common misconception founders have: that virality can be bought. His view, expressed in both the Bertelsmann podcast and a BII Fund podcast transcript, is the opposite.

"People think virality is a scientific process that is bought by money. Virality, consistent virality is a product of taking many shots."

- Tanmay Bhat · BII Fund podcast transcript

He describes virality as an outcome of constant experimentation, fast feedback loops, and learning from what does not work. This applies to paid advertising directly: the businesses that test multiple creatives, measure which converts, and iterate quickly outperform those that run one fixed ad and hope it works.

3. Know your audience - they are more sophisticated than you think

One consistent thread across Moonshot's work is a deep understanding of what the Indian internet audience responds to. Devaiah Bopanna, in a Storyboard18 interview, explained: "We are content creators first. We have been writing and creating for the internet for close to a decade now. So I think we understand the audience, their triggers, and the attention economy."

For paid advertising, this translates to one practical point: ads shown to the wrong audience fail regardless of how good the creative is. Relevance - matching the right message to the right person - is what determines whether an ad converts or gets ignored.

Tanmay's advertising success is not just about creative quality. Industry observers note that Moonshot consistently works with brands that have large, relatable markets - ensuring the audience can actually connect with the product category. Relevance fuels shareability.

How GrowEasy.ai applies each principle automatically

GrowEasy.ai is an AI-powered lead generation and ad management platform built specifically for Indian SMBs - founded in 2023 by Tej Pandya and backed by IIM Lucknow Enterprise Incubation Center. It runs campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, Google, and YouTube.

Here is how each of the three principles maps to what the platform does:

The Indian SMB digital opportunity - sourced data

40M+

MSMEs registered on India's Udyam portal as of March 2024

Source: India Brand Equity Foundation via Statista

97%

are micro-enterprises - most underserved by traditional agencies

Source: India Brand Equity Foundation via Statista, 2024

900M+

internet users projected in India by 2025

Source: IAMAI–Kantar Internet in India Report, Jan 2025

~2.5%

of India's 85M MSMEs were advertising or selling online as of FY2023

Source: Redseer via Statista, 2023

The brands Moonshot works with have the budgets to hire top creative agencies. Most Indian SMBs do not. But the principles behind consistent advertising, testing what works, and reaching the right audience are not budget-dependent - they are strategy-dependent. AI-powered platforms make that strategy accessible at ₹1,000 ad spends.

What GrowEasy.ai does and does not do

Based on GrowEasy's published product descriptions and third-party listings on Sourceforge, SoftwareSuggest, and Toolify.

What it does

• Multi-platform campaigns: Facebook, Instagram, Google, and YouTube from one guided workflow
• AI creative generation: Ad creatives, copy, audience targeting, and lead forms generated automatically
• WhatsApp-first lead delivery: Leads delivered directly to WhatsApp in real time
• AI WhatsApp agent: Qualifies leads and adds them to the built-in CRM automatically
• Built-in mini CRM: Manage and track all leads inside the platform
• Language support: English and Hindi including vernacular ad formats
• Starting budget: Ad campaigns from ₹1,000
• Pricing: Starts at $10 per campaign per third-party listings. Visit groweasy.ai/pricing for current plans

What it does not do

• Not a creative agency - it does not produce celebrity-driven or high-concept brand campaigns
• Not designed for brand awareness objectives - built specifically for lead generation
• Limited creative customisation for advertisers who need granular control

PROS

Consistent campaigns running 24/7 automatically

AI tests and optimises continuously

Audience targeting built from your business inputs

Leads delivered to WhatsApp in real time

Starts from ₹1,000 in ad spend

English and Hindi ad support

CONS

Not a substitute for creative brand campaign work

Not suitable for brand awareness objectives

Limited granular creative control

Frequently asked questions

Did Tanmay Bhat work alone on Moonshot's campaigns? 

No. Moonshot was co-founded by Tanmay Bhat and Devaiah Bopanna in 2023. The agency's campaigns are a collaborative effort - Bopanna, Puneet Chadha, Deep Joshi, and the full Moonshot team are credited across their work. Attributing the campaigns solely to Tanmay Bhat is inaccurate.

What has Tanmay Bhat actually said about virality and advertising? 

In a Bertelsmann Building It Up podcast with Ankur Warikoo, Tanmay discussed how running two or three campaigns a year does not build a brand, and how virality is not something you can simply buy with money. He described it as a process of constant experimentation, fast feedback loops, and taking many shots - learning from what does not work as much as from what does.

Can a small business apply Moonshot-style thinking without a large budget? 

The principles behind Moonshot's success - consistency, experimentation, and audience relevance - apply at any budget level. What changes with budget is production quality and celebrity access, not the underlying strategic logic. AI-powered platforms like GrowEasy.ai automate the consistency and testing parts, making them accessible to businesses spending ₹1,000–₹20,000 per month on ads.

Which platforms does GrowEasy.ai run ads on? 

GrowEasy supports campaigns on Facebook, Instagram, Google, and YouTube. Leads are delivered via WhatsApp and email, and managed inside a built-in CRM.