How To Create Effective Diwali Campaigns This Festive Season

Diwali is probably the favourite time of the year for marketers and consumers alike. Marketers are looking to make a dent in our Diwali with their lucrative, can’t miss out on offers Diwali campaigns, and on the other hand, consumers are looking for similar offers where they can get most in the least expenditure.

To support this idea, Campaign Hero did a study, where they found that more than 25% of businesses had a dedicated paid media budget for Diwali 2024. Moreover, India Inc. anticipates an increase of 8-10% sales, after a glum one and a half years.

But why exactly do brands have high expectations this festive season? Let’s comb through some important insights about Diwali campaigns by brands to determine this.

Why Are Diwali Campaigns by Brands Important?

The management consultancy RedSeer, has found in research that this Diwali festive season, the e-commerce industry will witness a revolutionizing boom, culminating at a high of $150 billion, owing to the tier 2 and tier 3 Indian cities.

Moreover, a study by YouGov and The Trade Desk 2024, has found that 60% of people are excited about the festive season sales, and 91% are already planning their purchases for the same! This is also supported by Google Trends data, over the past 5 years.

Now that you have a profound understanding of the festive season in India and the need to create actionable and effective Diwali ad campaigns in 2024, let’s understand how you can do so!

How To Create Timeless Diwali Ad Campaigns?

We have broken down the process of creating Diwali ad campaigns into 5 simple steps.

1. Take Seasonal Factors into Consideration

Like all festivals, Diwali too is made what it is owing to its religious significance, the rush of excitement in people, and the traditions and rituals that mark the occasion. These exactly are the contributing factors that form the behavioral patterns and purchase intents of consumers.

Thus, in order to create a successful campaign, you need to hit the nail on the head by putting forth a point the consumers connect with instantly. These behavioral patterns also allow brands to trace the locus of current trends or any overdue changes in the preference of consumers.

For instance, if we go through the search trends on the keyword ideas ‘Diwali sale’ and ‘Diwali deals’, we get the following results:

These search trends provide just a glimpse of the current consumer leanings, and how this preference has built over the past 3 months, owing to the festive hints.

2. Analyse Your Niche and Its Dynamic During Festive Season

Before you make a move on planning your Diwali campaign, you need to renumerate comprehensive marketplace data. For instance, if you have an e-commerce business, you need to find out the size of your market, the popular categories, and ultimately, the estimated demand to determine the rate of production & supply.

As per the ‘Decoding Consumer behavior and Winning the 2024 Festive season’ Playbook by MMA, GroupM, and Amazon Advertising, 80% of consumers will research/purchase products online. However, the key takeaway is that 50% of consumer journeys will be ‘digital only’! Thus, make sure it is digitally ready to make a bang this Diwali season. Also, make sure you understand how your niche is playing on these popular platforms.

3. Analyse The Consumer Behaviour

Coming to the third, and I dare say, the most important straw of your Diwali ad campaign journey – consumer behavior. In the past decade itself, the browsing patterns and the spending quality have dramatically changed when it comes to the Indian market.

If you manage to understand how your target audience is making their purchase behaviors, you can effectively communicate with them, making your Diwali ventures a success. The process begins by understanding where your audience actually is. According to statcounter.com, nearly 80% of Indians browse the internet on their mobile devices, whereas a mere 20% do so on their laptops.

Now that you know where your audience is, you need to do a deep dive into their preferences, habits, areas of interest, etc., to understand what they are browsing and what they are appreciating.

Want to know something exciting? As per the MMA Global Playbook, 25% of online consumers will be celebrating the first festive season online this year.

Moreover, as per MMA Playbook, 62% of consumers are, at the moment, undecided about the product/brand choice and would only start researching about the same 1 -2 months before Diwali season begins.

For what it’s worth, one thing has been clearer than ever that digital is no more a support, or supplementary decision-making factor when it comes to purchasing decisions, it is the core to their purchase plans. The brands that understand this very simple fact, are already halfway through the race.

4. What Are Your Competitors Doing?

Yes, you are putting in your best efforts to create the most successful Diwali campaign, but so are your competitors. If you don’t keep their moves in check, you will end up in a checkmate.

Don’t know where to start?

Track down their estimated budget for festive campaigns, the platforms they are present on, the people they are collaborating with, and leveraging the brand value of. Furthermore, track down their website traffic, the source of their leads, their conversion rates, etc. to break down Diwali campaign by brands

Most importantly, what are the goals they hope to achieve from these ventures.

As per data by SEMrush, 8 in 10 brands are going to maintain or increase their budgets for the festive season of 2024.

All in all, keep your enemies closer. The only way to beat your competitors is to analyze what they are doing and do it better than them, all the while maintaining a distinct and loud unique selling proposition.

5. Compile A Solid Diwali Campaign

Now comes the time to finally start drawing your plans. The valuable arrows in your quiver would be:

• Factors affecting consumer decision journey
• Top interest areas of your target audience
• The purpose of their festive spends
• A combination of historic and current data

These factors are very well interdependent, and a Diwali campaign by brand cannot hope to succeed without taking these 4 key factors into consideration.

Your campaign should have a clear time-bound goal, pre-defined KPIs to track its progress and subsequent failure/success, and should be driven strongly by a sentimental factor.

Best Diwali Social Media Campaigns

If we are talking about digital campaigns, our discussion will not be referred to as comprehensive without the mention of social media. Even more so, because consumers rely on social media platforms 33% of the times while making purchase decisions, as per data by The Trade Desk. Thus, brands are making sure to make the best out of the social media stars, i.e., the influencers’ brand value.

Let’s take a look at one such brand’s Diwali social media campaign…

In 2018, Saregama Carvaan began a campaign #ShorYaSangeet, pointing out that not everyone likes the festive commotion, rather enjoys quiet time where they can spend time with family, friends, and pets. They fruitfully roped in several influencers for their cause as well.

The brand was clever enough to step back and let the influencer communicate with followers in her own manner, ensuring maximum connection. However, the influencer built further upon the brand concept by gifting her parents something they would thoroughly enjoy!

Brands can collaborate with top influencers through influencer marketing agency in India, and penetrate into highly niched and targeted audiences, by brand association leverage strategy.

Conclusion

To conclude this blog, I would like to point out that while planning a campaign for a festival like Diwali, brands need to be especially careful as this event is religiously and personally very dear to the Indian consumer. On the competitor end, always keep an eye out for what the biggest brands are up to as well.

I hope you found this blog instructive and helpful. Feel free to share.