Festival season is the most appropriate time for marketers to grow and make huge profits. That’s because Indians prefer to do shopping in the festival season only. Precisely for this reason, most marketers have focussed their attention on festive marketing. For that they have drawn festive marketing strategy, set target goals and fill stocks in advance. However, festival season 2025 is special. With the entry of AI , marketers have been working overtime to adopt new strategies to increase their sales.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe!Experts said that sellers and vendors need to embrace innovation, optimize their strategies and focus on profitability.However, advanced advertising tools, dynamic pricing and international expansion are among top three tips of marketers.
In fact, festive marketing has evolved in the last few years due to changing consumer behavior, digital innovation, and brand strategy. Major Indian festivals, such as Rakhi, Janmashtami Diwali, Ganesh Chaturthi, and Durga Puja, are part of the most iconic advertising campaigns. All the leading brands including international, seek to capitalise on the increased spending and emotions during these times.
Infact, the festival season on the calendar starts in August and ends in December. From Rakhi, Krishan Janamashtami, Onam, Ganesh Chaturthi to Diwali, Karva Chauth and Christmas, each festival has a distinct marketing strategy due to varied interest of customers who not only look for new product but also look for useful and valuable products. However, it is extremely important for marketers and advertisers to adopt festival centric marketing and advertising strategies such as storytelling, offer or bonus led campaigns and immersive formats. In order to scale up sales, marketers and advertisers spend more on advertising and marketing.
According to Exchange4media, customer is the central focal point stating that festive mood is a series of micro-moments that move the consumer from discovery and evaluation to purchase. Experts said that while budgets are going bold, marketing strategies are getting also bolder.
According to a post on Linkedin, Amazon India plans to offer its biggest sales opportunity of the year, thereby giving a lot of opportunities for marketers and advertisers to maximize revenue, focus on this proven sales booster. It lays emphasis on early planning, listing and inventory for bigger festive wins!
All leading brands have focussed on mega sales and leverage social media platofms to marke their products. Accoding to According to digitaldawn.in, one can see a growth in an online shopping behaviour of customers. Rural markets now represent one of the fastest growing segment of e commerce industry in India. behaviour of customer Meesho is gearing up for a strong festival season in 2025, with a focus on its mega blockbuster sale and leveraging social media marketing. The company is also reportedly planning an IPO launch between September and October 2025.
The BS report clearly indicated that advertising companies have been preferring digital media over TV and print media. The TV’s share has declined from 31 per cent to 28 per cent between 2023 and 2024, and is expected to drop further to 24 per cent in 2025. Print media followed a similar trend, decreasing from 20 per cent to 17 per cent by the end of 2024, with projections suggesting a further decline to 15 per cent by 2025-end, the report stated. Radio, which maintained a steady share of 2 per cent in 2024, is expected to decline to a per cent by the end of the year, reflecting the shifting dynamics of the advertising landscape, stated the daily.
Challenges of Festival marketing
Unlike the past, marketers have reportedly prepared themselves in advance for the festive season because of short festive window and high potential of small town markets.
Experts concede that marketers find it difficult to stand out among the multitude of other companies all vying for customer attention. This is one the biggest challenge besides other challenges like cultural diversity, consumer behaviour and logistical issues.
How to meet challenges?
However, there is a need to draw a product centric festive marketing strategy. The strategy should create valuable content for customers that can solve their problems, build their brand , genuine connections rather than just promoting sales. That can be done through offers like holiday trip, thank you notes and gifts. As part of the strategy, marketers should start early and launch personalised campaigns to grab the attention of customers. More so, marketers should avoid pushing products and instead share real stories with which, customers can connect emotionally. In festival season, big brands prefer to spend more on holiday ads so it is extremely important for marketers to spend money on ads carefully. Besides, marketers should focus on long-term conversions.
