Ad Campaigns
Use ‘Umbrella with Raindrops’ for sex risk awareness
MUMBAI: The World’s leading sexual wellbeing brand, Durex, today announced “Umbrella with Raindrops” as the overwhelming choice (23.3%) in a global poll1 to find the unofficial safe sex emoji.
Shockingly, almost half of 16-35 year olds think that HIV is not something that could ever affect them2 despite the fact that every 30 seconds a young person is infected with HIV3.
Whilst more than 60% of young people surveyed1 admitted to being uncomfortable discussing safe sex, 72% of respondants surveyed admitted they found it easier to express emotions using emojis and more than three quarters admitted that they use emojis to discuss sex and relationships.
The unveiling of an unofficial safe sex emoji is the latest move in Durex’s ongoing #CondomEmoji campaign which calls for Unicode to put a safe sex emoji on every smartphone in the world in order to help young people communicate about safe sex more easily.
To date, the #CondomEmoji campaign has trended on both Twitter and Facebook with supporters from over 160 countries backing the movement, and has seen high profile support on social media from global organisations including the International Planned Parenthood Association, Terrence Higgins Trust and New Zealand AIDS Foundation. Durex hopes that the popularity of the unofficial safe sex emoji will demonstrate what the 9 out of 10 surveyed confirmed; that a safe sex emoji would be a step towards empowering young people to talk about safe sex – and encourage Unicode to reconsider their decision to reject the original application.
Durex Global Category Director, Volker Sydow, said: “Until Unicode recognise the need for a Condom Emoji and reverse their decision to put a safe sex emoji on every smartphone across the globe, we must continue to demonstrate that there is the desire for such a thing. We believe the naming of “Umbrella with Raindrops” as the unofficial safe sex emoji will be a significant step towards helping young people put safe sex back on the agenda. We are asking people to show their support for the cause on World AIDS Day 2016 by using this unofficial safe sex emoji and the hashtag #CondomEmoji.”
The campaign has also received the support of the International Planned Parenthood Association (IPPF), with Director General Tewodros Melesse adding: “Safe sex awareness continues to be an important global challenge. We support Durex’s campaign in helping make young people think about protection. On World AIDS Day we will be backing this effort to help raise awarness of the risks associated with unprotected sex.”
Sources:
1. 3GEM research questioning 3500 people from UK, USA, Brazil, China, India and South Africa commissioned by Durex – UK, October 2016
2. Someone Like Me, VIMN & Brand Solutions Insight with Tapestry Research, 2014
3. UNAIDS. Global Report 2010, Core Slides, Slide 11
NATIONAL: Amazon Ads has laid out a sharply tech-led vision for the advertising industry in 2026, arguing that artificial intelligence, streaming TV and creator partnerships will combine to turn brand building into a more precise, performance-driven business.
At the heart of the shift, the company says, is the fusion of AI with Amazon’s vast trove of shopping, browsing and streaming signals, allowing advertisers to move beyond blunt reach metrics to campaigns designed around real customer behaviour.
“The future of advertising is not about reaching more people, but the right people with messages that resonate,” said Amazon Ads India head and vice president Girish Prabhu. “By combining AI with deep customer insights, we help brands move from broadcasting campaigns to having meaningful conversations wherever audiences spend their time.”
One of the biggest changes, according to Amazon Ads, will be the collapse of the wall between media planning and creative development. Retail media, powered by first-party data, is increasingly shaping everything from brand discovery to final purchase, pushing marketers to design campaigns around audience insight rather than internal instinct.
AI is also moving from a support tool to a creative engine. Agentic AI, which automates and accelerates production, is expected to make high-quality creative accessible even to small businesses, compressing weeks of work into hours and giving challengers the ability to compete with larger brands on speed and scale.
Behind the scenes, AI-driven analytics will take on a bigger role in campaign optimisation, identifying patterns, spotting opportunities and recommending actions that would previously have required teams of analysts.
Streaming TV is another big battleground. With India’s video streaming audience now above 600 million and connected TV users at 129.2 million in 2025, advertisers are set to treat streaming not just as a branding channel but as a performance engine, measured increasingly by sales, sign-ups and bookings rather than just reach.
Finally, Amazon Ads sees creators and contextual advertising reshaping how brands tell stories. Creators will act less like influencers and more like long-term partners, while scene-aware ads on streaming platforms will allow brands to insert hyper-relevant offers into the flow of what viewers are watching.
Taken together, Amazon Ads argues, these shifts mark a move towards advertising that is both more human and more measurable, where AI handles the complexity, and creativity does the persuading.
