Mumbai: Tata Play, a content distribution platform, has announced the launch of Coco, an AI-assisted puppy mascot designed to represent the brand across all consumer touchpoints. Developed in collaboration with Ogilvy and Aesthetic Intelligence Labs, Coco is among the first mascots in the Indian entertainment industry built using a generative AI-led creative workflow spanning character design, narrative development, and campaign production.
Coco reflects Tata Play’s brand attributes—charming, curious, and clever—and will appear across television and digital platforms, the Tata Play Mobile App, and customer communication touchpoints. His introduction strengthens the brand’s visual identity while ensuring consistency across channels. The campaign also marks a leap in how character-based storytelling can be scaled through AI-augmented systems.
While Coco’s initial design followed traditional techniques, his production was powered by a hybrid pipeline of 15+ AI tools, combining handcrafted animation with generative AI tools, motion models, and custom visual logic engines. To ensure consistency of textures and expressions, the team built a dedicated visual dataset of over 8,000 frames, enabling AI to replicate Coco’s emotional and physical range with precision. This approach has allowed Tata Play to enhance speed, consistency, and scalability—delivering a campaign that fuses the richness of traditional animation with the precision of modern AI.
This initiative underscores Tata Play’s forward-looking approach to brand-building, combining creativity and technology while staying true to its promise of being easy and simple to deal with. Through short-format films developed entirely using generative AI, Coco brings a fresh, humanised tone to product features, platform benefits, and service messaging. Beyond being a mascot, Coco is positioned as a long-term brand asset, designed to evolve alongside changing media behaviours and exemplify scalable, high-impact storytelling without losing authenticity.
Krishnendu Dasgupta, Head – Marketing Communications, Tata Play, said, “At Tata Play, innovation is always guided by one principle, to make the customer experience simpler, more intuitive and impactful. Our use of generative AI at this scale underscores our commitment to leveraging technology in ways that are not just efficient, but also creatively distinct. As consumer attention shifts across platforms and formats, our storytelling must evolve too. Coco is a step in that direction, designed to make Tata Play more relatable, memorable, and seamlessly present across every touchpoint. It reflects our belief that great technology must always make things simpler for the end consumer.”
Sharing the creative vision, Sukesh Nayak, Chief Creative Officer, Ogilvy, said, “The idea was to create an identity for Tata Play that is universally loved and instantly relatable. Coco was unanimously voted the perfect fit. Coco embodies the brand’s essence of being reliable, friendly, and always there when you need it. Through 20-second short and sweet stories, we have created moments of joy that showcase the features of the brand in a natural and engaging manner.”
Carol Goyal, Executive Director, Aesthetic Intelligence Lab, added, “As technology continues to reshape the world of creative communication, Tata Play’s collaboration with us to bring Coco to life is a testament to the exciting potential of AI-driven storytelling. At Aesthetic Intelligence Lab, our focus is on blending artistry with cutting-edge technology, and Coco embodies this perfect fusion. By leveraging generative AI and a custom-trained visual dataset, we were able to push the boundaries of design fidelity and emotional resonance, ensuring that Coco not only captivates but also connects with audiences at a deeper level. This initiative demonstrates how technology can be fused with traditional mediums to create compelling, scalable narratives that remain authentic and emotionally engaging, revolutionizing the way brands communicate with their audiences.”
