Ad Campaigns
Vodafone and Girl Rising Foundation launch game to break gender stereotype
MUMBAI: Ruksana’s family are “pavement dwellers” – living on the streets of Kolkata, India, where her father has sacrificed everything to send his daughters to school. Ruksana’s life is filled with danger but she escapes into her artwork and draws strength from her father’s resolve.
Amina is constrained by Afghan society, confined by her gender and expected only to serve men. But this child bride has had enough. She is determined to reject the limitations prescribed by society and to lead others to do the same.
Though her brothers go to school, Suma is forced into bonded labor at age six. The Nepali girl endures years of grueling work by expressing her sorrow in beautiful music and lyrics. Suma glimpses a different future by learning to read, the first step on the road to freedom.
Ruksana, Amina and Suma are inspiration for millions of girls in India and across the world who are fighting to break the gender-based barriers for accessing education and livelihood opportunities.
Recognising the urgent need to address behaviours and mindsets that lead to perpetuation of gender-discriminatory practices, Vodafone Foundation and Girl Rising came together to connect with adolescents and youth using the power of storytelling. This led to the development of Girl Rising Game, a unique android-based game that leverages popular Match-3 puzzle game genre to create awareness about such practices and empower users to lead change.
The game was developed under Vodafone Foundation’s ‘Solutions for Good’ initiative that develops technology solutions for addressing social issues and creating large scale social impact. NASSCOM Foundation is the principal implementation partner for the initiative.
Bollywood actor Arjun Kapoor digitally launched the Girl Rising Game on 26 June 26 ahead of his 33rd birthday. The actor presented the Girl Rising Game as a ‘gift’ to his followers, urging them to challenge gender roles, and question age-old beliefs which normalised gender-based discrimination.
Girl Rising Game has adapted and gamified four real stories from ‘Girl Rising’s flagship film ‘Woh Padhegi, Who Udegi’ to inculcate a better understanding of the barriers to education, and of the commonly held and revered beliefs that fester gender-based discrimination. Vodafone Foundation has supported Girl Rising in the design and development of this educative and engaging game.
Speaking on his motivation behind supporting this cause, Arjun Kapoor said, “It is unfortunate that so many girls and women in our country still have to fight to have the same opportunities as their male counterparts. It is important that every individual contributes towards eradicating gender discrimination. Ending gender-based discrimination is something that I firmly believe in, the next time you or anyone else spots a form of gender-based discrimination, try to stop it. Achieving gender equality is not the responsibility of women alone; men must play their part too.”
Vodafone India director of regulatory, external affairs and CSR P Balaji says, “Vodafone Foundation has consistently focused on harnessing relevant technology solutions for addressing critical areas of women empowerment and education. The launch of Girl Rising Game is a result of this strong commitment and a robust partnership with Girl Rising. Using gamification, it addresses the long pertaining issue of gender discrimination with the youth in a more relatable way. We are confident that convergence of technology will enable us to find solutions for many other areas of social impact.”
In its initial phase, the Girl Rising Game has released four playable stories, and has more in the offing due to be released later in the year. Game is available to download on Vodafone Game store, Social App Hubs and Google Play Store.
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.
