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IAA hosts Voice of Change session on gender sensitisation at Goafest 2024
Mumbai: The India chapter of the International Advertising Association (IAA), with UNICEF as the knowledge partner, is set to host a knowledge session on Gender Sensitisation in Advertising and Media on 30th May at 10:15 a.m. at the Goafest 2024 in Westin Mumbai Powai Lake. The theme is “Gender-Sensitive Marketing: Navigating the New Consumer Landscape.” Industry leaders will discuss the importance of dismantling stereotypes and promoting diverse & inclusive gender depiction in advertising and media.
The knowledge session at Goafest, India’s biggest advertising festival, co-hosted by the Advertising Agencies Association of India and The Advertising Club, aligns with the theme “The Age of Adaptability.” It addresses the intersection of evolving consumer mindsets with the need for a gender-positive approach in advertising communications. Industry veterans, Rajdeepak Das (CCO, Publicis Groupe SA), Chandni Shah (COO, FCB Kinnect), Ram Madhvani (Ad and film director/producer), Darshana Shah (Head of Marketing & Customer Experience, Aditya Birla Capital), and Kailashnath Adhikari (Business Head, Sri Adhikari Brothers Group) will share their insights on this critical issue in a panel discussion moderated by Kranti Gada (managing committee member, IAA India Chapter & founder of Neown.in).
For more information/ registration: www.goafest.com
Speaking about the initiative, IAA India Chapter president Avinash Pandey commented, “As a leading industry body, the IAA is committed to champion the cause of diverse and inclusive gender portrayal in advertising & communication. The IAA: Voice of Change movement creates awareness and empowers stakeholders across the industry on inclusive gender representation in media. At this knowledge session, we are honoured to collaborate with Goafest 2024, where visionary personalities will unite to drive this crucial initiative at an industry level.”
IAA Women Empowerment Committee chairperson Nina Elavia Jaipuria said, “There is a collective cultural shift towards a more gender-equitable and inclusive society. As creators of narratives with the ability to shape and influence societal perceptions, the industry must recognize their roles in breaking biases and challenging stereotypes. The IAA Voice of Change knowledge session at Goafest 2024 will empower content creators towards a more progressive and inclusive gender portrayal in content across the spectrum”
IAA Women Empowerment Committee immediate past president IAA India Chapter & co-chair Megha Tata, said “IAA VOC has been a gratifying journey ever since it started around 4 years ago. It has grown to become a movement and to see all the key stakeholders of our industry actively participating in this dialogue makes me very hopeful of the real impact this can make in our social fabric.”
Voice of Change, an IAA initiative focused on Diversity, Inclusion and Equity with UNICEF as the knowledge partner, started as a behaviour change communication initiative aimed at addressing the skewed portrayal of gender in advertising and communication. Through the years it has become the definitive forum to inform and sensitize the Indian advertising and media industry on equitable and inclusive gender depiction spanning the entire creative spectrum, from a 30 sec TVC to a 3-hour movie and everything in between. IAA is committed to sensitizing creative minds and industry forces to drive significant change through nationwide summits, conferences, and workshops with leading communication agencies and brand custodians.
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.
