Ad Campaigns
Puma joins hands with NGO Parcham to fuel girls’ football dreams
MUMBAI: Global sportswear brand Puma has joined hands with Mumbai-based NGO Parcham to empower it in its efforts to break gender stereotypes. It aims to bolster the NGO’s mission of inspiring women from marginalised communities of Mumbra, a small town in Thane district near Mumbai, to take up football and make it a viable career option.
Since October 2012, Parcham has been helping women break free of prejudices and reclaim their freedom through football and now Puma will support the organisation with training gear and sports shoes that will help the Parcham girls to not only perform better on the field but also bring in a competitive edge. In addition to this, the leading sports brand will also leverage its roster of global sports partners and athletes to provide coaching sessions for Parcham’s trainers, coaches and the footballers.
“It’s very heartening to see a global sports brand like Puma support us in our efforts to encourage more girls to play football. I truly believe sports is an equaliser and has the power to change lives. It is helping us break stereotypes about girls from Mumbra and other marginalised communities. Playing football has not just helped them build their confidence, it has also given them a new outlook and a realization of their right and love for play,” said Parcham’s Salma Ansari.
“Sports has the ability to change lives – it is a powerful tool to challenge gender norms and stereotypes. We believe everyone should have the opportunity to play, irrespective of their gender or background. Through this association, we are looking to drive the change needed for a future where every woman and girl has equal opportunities to pursue her dreams,” said Puma India and Southeast Asia managing director Abhishek Ganguly.
Ad Campaigns
Amazon Ads maps 2026 as AI and streaming rewrite ad playbooks
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.








