Ad Campaigns
Arpan launches #ProtectedByPOCSO campaign
Mumbai: An alarming 50 per cent of children in India have experienced sexual abuse (MWCD 2007), with 182 new cases reported every day (NCRB 2022). As the rate of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) continues to escalate across the country, Arpan launched an awareness campaign aimed squarely at child sexual offenders. The campaign seeks to educate the public on what constitutes CSA and highlight that sexual violence against children is neither acceptable nor tolerable. According to the NCRB 2022, 42 per cent of all crimes committed against children are sexual offenses.
The #ProtectedByPOCSO campaign delivers a powerful, unequivocal message: Child Sexual Abuse is a criminal offense – Stop Now or Face the Consequences. This campaign is a direct call to action, warning offenders that they will face severe legal repercussions under the POCSO Act (Protection of Children from Sexual Offenses, 2012), along with significant social consequences. Arpan aims to raise widespread awareness of CSA laws and protections, deter offenders, and ensure that they understand that they will be held fully accountable for their actions.
“We can no longer ignore the root of this grave issue. We must take proactive steps to prevent sexual abuse and protect children from harm,” said Arpan founder & CEO Pooja Taparia. “This campaign is not just about laws; it’s about making offenders understand that their actions will not go unnoticed. They will be caught, they will be isolated, and they will face severe legal consequences. Our children deserve to grow up in a world where they are safe, and the POCSO Act stands as a shield to protect them.”
Bollywood actress Vidya Balan, Arpan’s goodwill ambassador, expressed her support for the campaign, stating: “It’s time for all of us to come together and speak up for child safety. As an advocate for this cause, I stand with Arpan and the #ProtectedByPOCSO campaign because children deserve to grow up free from the fear of abuse. Offenders may try to manipulate or take advantage of children’s trust, but this campaign ensures that such heinous acts will not go unpunished”
The #ProtectedByPOCSO campaign was launched during Child Safety Week (14-20 November), with an extensive public outreach effort. In partnership with the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA), Thane Municipal Corporation (TMC), and Brihanmumbai Electric Supply and Transport (BEST), Arpan is displaying child safety messages across the Maha Mumbai Metro and Public Buses in Mumbai and Thane. Billboards in Vile Parle and Bandra, local trains on the Western Line, and Auto Rickshaws across the city are also showcasing the campaign. The campaign film is being shown in PVR theaters across Mumbai and is available on major OTT platforms, including Jio Cinema, Zee5, and MX Player.
In addition, schools in Maharashtra, Chhattisgarh, Goa, and Andhra Pradesh have joined the movement by displaying school uniforms on their main gates with the powerful message: All children in India are #ProtectedByPOCSO. Stop Right Now or Get Caught.
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.
