“I’m only three-and-a-half abs old” — that’s a response you would least likely expect if you ask an elderly woman her age. Don’t startle, because that should be an acceptable response. After all, you don’t have to be defined by your age, and neither should it stop you from pursuing desires. So it doesn’t matter if others consider you too old to climb mountains, or take dance lessons among young students — you are as old as your experiences. Flipkart reiterates this thought in its ‘Choose Your Age’ campaign, as told by nine individuals.

“At Flipkart, we've been both a witness and a partner to India's progress over the last decade. As a brand, we believe it is integral to our success to celebrate those who enabled it, which is why we have chosen to celebrate the ‘new India’ even while we subtly keep alive the message of how we continue to strive to win the hearts and minds of our customers through e-commerce,” says Shoumyan Biswas, vice-president, marketing, Flipkart. It strays away from the signature ‘kidult’ content, but the e-tailer calls this celebrating progressive Indian stories and breaking stereotypes. Quite like how it did with its earlier ‘Penguin Dad’ series to celebrate fatherhood. “In our evolution as a brand, it is important that we move beyond a purely functional relationship with our customers and build deeper emotive connect. Our brand campaigns — Penguin Dad and Choose Your Age — do just that to bring their stories alive on our platform,” he adds.

So, when it comes to talking about stereotypes, the latest campaign, too, challenges notions to tackle another hot topic: age appropriateness and the thin line between ‘act your age’ and ‘follow your heart’. Arun Iyer, chairman and CCO, Lowe Lintas, says, “There are many beliefs in the society that limits a person from pursuing what they want. Through this campaign, we wanted to empower people across age and gender. During this process, we ourselves realised that we follow some of these beliefs, and have our own restrictions about what we can and cannot do.” It might be daunting to take the first step, but as this e-commerce giant explains, there is no holding oneself back after that.