Ad Campaigns
UN Women India and Unstereotype Alliance industry partners launch #YouDontSeeMe campaign
Mumbai: A new campaign by UN Women and industry partners aims to tackle the persistent problem of gender stereotypes in Indian advertising. The #YouDontSeeMe campaign was launched on 6 July in the financial hub Mumbai by the Unstereotype Alliance, a collaborative platform convened by UN Women.
“We fully recognize the power and influence of the advertising industry and the advertisers that shape the industry when it comes to stirring positive social norms change,” said UN Women India Country Representative Susan Ferguson. “UN Women is excited to partner with the Alliance to challenge and advance the ways women are represented.”
India’s advertising industry faces concerns regarding gender-stereotypical portrayals of men and women. Around 87 per cent of Indian respondents to a recent survey said that women are typically portrayed in traditional roles in their country’s media, and 86 per cent said the same of the portrayal of men.
The primary objective of #YouDontSeeMe campaign is to shed light on gender portrayals in the media while emphasising the disparity between on-screen and real-life experiences. This campaign aims to use the power of advertising to transmit gender-positive messages across print, digital and out-of-home media.
The two-month campaign will be rolled out across India, with further launches planned in New Delhi, Chennai, Bangalore, Kolkata, and Hyderabad reaching around 10 million individuals.
The #YouDontSeeMe campaign was developed by Unstereotype Alliance India Chapter members GREY Agency, with media outreach support from WPP and IPG Mediabrands India through their media agencies, GroupM and Lodestar UM. Lodestar UM, an IPG Mediabrands India network agency, is making a valuable contribution by providing media buying support and collaborating through free media partnerships for the campaign.
WPP India chief culture officer Apoorva Bapna said, “It is imperative that all stakeholders come together to create an ecosystem that promotes gender equality across the board. Unstereotype Alliance in India has made significant progress by bringing together brands, agencies, and policy makers to advance gender equality through empowering business practices and positive messaging.”
Manisha Kapoor, chief executive and secretary general of the Advertising Standards Council of India (ASCI), stated: “ASCI is a founding ally of UA’s Indian Chapter and has made significant contributions on this subject. Notable contributions include reports such as GenderNext and GenderGains, and guidelines on harmful gender stereotypes. The #YouDontSeeMe campaign is aimed to encourage progressive gender depiction and breaking free from limiting traditional roles.”
Lodestar UM chief executive Aditi Mishra said, “We are delighted to partner with the #YouDontSeeMe campaign and contribute to its mission of challenging gender stereotypes in advertising. At Lodestar UM, we believe in using the power of media to drive positive change and promote inclusivity. By leveraging our media buying expertise, we aim to create impactful campaigns that resonate with audiences and help reshape perceptions. Together with the Unstereotype Alliance, we are committed to advancing gender equality and fostering a more inclusive media landscape.”
Members of the Unstereotype Alliance in India have conducted insightful studies and market research such as GenderNext study by ASCI, Gender Equality Attitudes Study by Kantar, Gender Portrayals in Advertising report by GDI & UNICEF, which have identified existing gender stereotypes in advertising, and emphasised the need to break free from them.
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.
