Festive marketing has long been the centerpiece of brand-consumer engagement in India, but this year the playbook is changing. With budgets tightening and consumer behavior evolving, brands and agencies are under pressure to deliver more with less. From sharper digital strategies to regional storytelling and influencer-led campaigns, industry leaders share how creativity, efficiency, and cultural resonance will define festive impact in 2025.
Shreyas Sathe, CEO, Hybrid INSEA
Festive campaigns don’t always need bigger budgets, they need smarter execution. By blending regional storytelling with influencer-led content and digital formats, brands can connect authentically. Adding AI-driven targeting ensures budgets are spent more efficiently, reaching the right people at the right time. This balance of creativity, reach, and cost-effectiveness helps brands deliver festive campaigns that truly resonate.
Anadi Sah, National Creative Director, Chief Innovation Officer & Founding Partner, tgthr
There are multiple factors that come into play when it’s about crafting a compelling festive campaign with limited budgets and changing consumer needs. The first and foremost being planning well-in advance in terms of budget, comms strategy and media plan. Next comes leveraging the right data signals to learn about the consumer behaviors, their preferences and trends that can be used to craft creative ideas that resonate with the audience. Whether to drive brand love campaign or performance or may be both is something that can be well strategized once we know what to be communicated to whom and where and data analysis can plan critical role in it. Lastly comes the most important factor – a powerful idea or story that resonates deeply and connects emotionally with the audiences. Now this story or idea that’s build on sharp and real human insight may be either mass, hyperlocal, personalized, with or without Ai is certain to deliver impact beyond its price tag.
Sahil Chopra, Founder and CEO, iCubesWire
Festive season brings the urge to spend big and go broader across channels, instead of doubling down on where the impact is most promising. What it means is leading with one strong creative idea and then adapting it into different versions for digital, influencer and regional platforms.
Agencies and brands should take a collaborative approach and put data to use and then plan campaigns around smaller moments. One good example is payday discounts. This way, the message you want to convey feels more personal and the campaign will stay in people’s minds even after the celebrations are over.
Also, tracking performance in real time is important to quickly shift spend towards what’s working. Encouraging community participation through user-generated content or interactive formats can stretch reach without heavy media costs.
Naresh Gupta, Bang In the Middle, Co- founder
This festival season is going to be tough. The headwinds India is facing is putting pressure on the purse. This means that this year the campaigns have to be more focussed on driving action and less on traditions and feel good factors. Every brand that is crafting campaigns will optimise the campaigns to be more response driven
