Festive marketing in India is like being handed the grandest stage of the year. The lights are brighter, the audience is kinder, the mood is already half in love with what you might create. And yet, every year, too many brands shuffle onto the stage with the same well-worn routine. The orchestra is warmed up for a symphony, but the hall hears familiar jingles and a chorus of discounts. Respectable, yes. Memorable, rarely. As someone who has steered brands through many such seasons, and now Coaches leaders to choose clarity over commotion, I cannot help offering the gentlest but most catalytic question I know: why aren’t you doing the things that truly matter?
Begin at the beginning. The fortnight before the festival is not a lull, it is the comedy and choreography before the curtain rises. Homes are in a cheerful uproar. Cupboards are turned inside out, walls get their annual glow-up, budgets are debated with the seriousness of a peace treaty, and a nation collectively decides which lamps, linens and laddoos will make the cut. This is theatre in the purest sense, the rehearsal that gives the performance its power. Yet most brands wait politely in the wings, saving their breath for opening night. Own the rehearsal and you will earn the applause. Celebrate the mending, the painting, the planning, the playful arguments. Honour the family’s backstage heroes, from the person who stretches the budget to the one who climbs the ladder to change the fairy lights. The brand that helps a household prepare belongs, naturally and without shouting, in the household’s story.
Now to the elephant in every festive room. The discount. Helpful in proportion, unhelpful in excess. When every banner promises the deepest cut, desire thins. Festivals are the architecture of longing and belonging, the slow crescendo of anticipation, the reveal that felt inevitable and yet still surprises. If price is your only instrument, you will always sound like everyone else. Build theatre. Make discovery the point. A fashion label might curate an “ancestral trunk” with heritage textures reimagined for now, not as costume but as continuity. An automaker could tell the story of a family road trip that becomes a ritual, not a race. An appliance brand might pivot from product to practice, showing kitchens as stages where memory is prepared. Transactions will follow, because meaning came first.
Who, then, are we speaking to? Not a demographic. The new earner who brings home the first bonus. The planner who loves a list and lives for the spreadsheet. The elder who measures prosperity in gold coins, heirlooms and the laughter of grandchildren. The child who sees each diya as a wish. Campaigns that acknowledge this choreography land with grace. The trick is not to anoint a single hero, but to cast the whole motley crew with empathy. When everyone can see themselves in the frame, the brand has already done half its work. That’s basic brand building 101, right?
Culture deserves equal care. India is not one festival subtitled in multiple languages. It is a constellation of rituals and micro-rituals that change every few kilometres. Many paint and décor brands already lean into regional palettes and motifs, and the best jewellery houses commission local crafts with respect. The opportunity now is to go deeper than token references and treat culture as a living brief. Think vernacular storytelling that reads like it was written at the kitchen table, not translated at the last minute. Think collaborations with folk artists where the product learns from the craft, not the other way round. Think city-by-city festival maps that help families rediscover neighbourhood rituals. When you take culture seriously, you stop being background and start becoming belonging.
What of data, that seemingly infinite confetti we all spill as we browse and buy? Too often it is used to follow people around a party rather than to make the party lovelier. Use data to delight. Build the family-feud buster on OTT that anticipates the annual debate between cricket and serials and queues up a truce everyone enjoys. Turn past orders into a memory lane that is part scrapbook, part shopping list. Send the right nudge on the right evening, not the same nudge every morning. Data is not oil to be squeezed but light to be scattered. If it does not sparkle for the person receiving it, it is not yet intelligence, it is only information.
Then there is noise. The season is loud enough without our help. Rather than add to the clang, design a pause. A moment of restful colour, warm copy that breathes, imagery that feels like a hand on the shoulder saying you have done enough, and you have done it well. A well-crafted pause is not absence, it is presence with intention. In Coaching, a pause often unlocks the insight we were rushing past. In marketing, a pause can be the moment everyone remembers when the season is over.
My favourite — Purpose, belongs at the table. Festivals are not just consumption, they are community. The boldest gestures are sometimes the simplest. A beauty brand that includes a gentle hydration kit for those who are fasting. A bank that creates pathways for tiny, symbolic debt relief during the season and tells those stories with humility. An appliance brand that pairs each urban LED sale with a solar lamp where evening still falls too quickly. None of this needs to be performative. It needs to be timely, transparent and true to the brand’s reason for being.
And finally, the afterparty, which brands frequently forget. The confetti has settled, the city needs a deep breath, return queues lengthen, and families are a little tired and a lot grateful. This is when the brand that shows up with grace earns the longest memory. Make exchanges effortless and kind. Partner with NGOs so unwanted gifts become someone else’s joy. Offer small rituals for recovery, from breathing sessions in wellness apps to home air-quality check-ins to neighbourhood clean-up drives that end with tea and laughter. In Coaching, closure matters as much as the breakthrough. In marketing, the afterglow is what people tell their “people” (sounds familiar — word of mouth, perhaps?).
If this sounds idealistic, it is also practical. The pipes of commerce are ready for it. Retail media can stage the story by day, Connected TV can make the living room shoppable without shouting, WhatsApp can hold the concierge journey from list to purchase, UPI can make the moment frictionless, and quick commerce can deliver the emergency marigolds that save the evening. The point is not to use every channel, but to compose them like an orchestra rather than a row of soloists. When the story comes first, the media hums in tune.
So here is my invitation from a Marketer who has learned to love restraint and a Coach who trusts the intelligence of audiences. Treat the festival as a story you have the privilege to join. Own the rehearsal with generosity. Cast the whole gang with panache. Go deeper than motifs into the meaning of place. Let data sparkle. Design a pause. Lead with purpose. Stay for the afterglow.
Do this and you will not only sell more, but you will also matter more. And that, in the end, is what I would like to christen “The Lamps and the Longing.” As a Coach, drawing from the strength of my CMO years, I invite you to create work that the lamps will remember, and the longing will carry forward.
