By Shradha Agarwal
India is home to a plethora of beautiful festivals and festive traditions. For Indians, festivities are something that they don’t mind spending some extra bucks on. So, with Diwali, Dussehra, Christmas and New Year on the horizon, it’s no secret that people’s shopping needs skyrocket during the end of the year. Consecutively, brands go heavy on their marketing efforts during the festive season. This creates a market cluttered with festive messagings that hardly differ from each other.
But the best part is that these festivals play a higher importance in certain geographies of the country. And these geographies are equivalent to entire countries on their own, like Maharastra is the same in population as Japan, West Bengal is as big as Egypt, Tamil Nadu is like Germany, and more. This makes a compelling reason for marketers to focus their energies on localised campaigns to drive maximum ROI.
I believe that going beyond the surface to explore specific insights, and figuring out new ways to leverage them is the key to creating the elusive and much talked about “clutter-breaking” campaign. India is a pretty diverse space by its very nature. So, understanding the nuanced differences in cultural and geographical celebrations is essential in creating a marketing approach that stands out in the sea of festive marketing by brands.
This is where geo-targeting and advanced technologies come into play. Geo-targeting relies heavily on having a precise understanding of your audience segments. By further breaking them down into defined cohorts and mapping their interaction habits with your brand or products, you can create a hyperlocal targeting strategy.
Two that are most overlooked while devising campaign strategies are:
Small Talk: During Diwali, the top rising searches are as below, but are we doing anything around them in the targeted geo locations in their language
+3750% happy diwali whatsapp status
+2586% rangoli for diwali easy
+2057% for diwali simple
+519% diwali craft ideas
Winning Moments: A user in your target audience might not prefer to see a fashion ad at 7 in the morning, instead they’d prefer news; or would prefer food ads before lunch. So, the point is to figure out when people are looking for you, and then being there during that window.
These analytics combined with advanced technologies is a powerful tool. This is specifically true during the festive season. The consumer intent to purchase is extremely high during this time, 84% of Indians plan to increase their budgets this festive season. So, being their top choice is essential by building top-of-the-mind recall. Brand communications are at an all time high during this time and a significant chunk of the year’s marketing budget is set aside for it. It becomes crucial for brands and marketers to skillfully leverage such powerful tools to deliver measurable impact.
The language angle
There’s no denying that we have an emotional connection with our mother tongue. Indians living abroad instantly gravitate towards other hindi speaking people or places. People living in different cities for studies or work, find comfort and joy in people speaking their language. Same emotion can be translated to brands-consumer relationships. Further, with the rise of OTT, several reports have observed that a considerable portion of people prefer consuming content in their regional language. And if you look at the statistics shared by Google, 72.4% people said that they are more likely to buy if the communication is in their own language.
Combine this with niche insights from the region, and the result will be far more impactful for that audience. For instance, the festival of Ramadan is celebrated the nation over, but it specifically stands for giving back to the community and being kind in the Bengali-speaking eastern region. So, Eicher showcased that emotion in a heart-warming film titled ‘Neki Ka Safar’, telling the story in the specific Bengali dialect of the region to build the most resonance.
The Bharat angle
With the ever-increasing internet penetration and purchase power among the ‘Bharat’ consumers, the tier 2-3, suburban and rural markets are emerging as big spenders. Moreover, they tend to align their major purchases around the festive season, because of (1) the big festive sales, and (2) the traditional auspiciousness of the occasions.
This audience primarily uses mobile phones for all their information gathering. Personalised messages through SMS or on social media messengers have a high probability of being opened and interacted with. And understanding their preference, geo-targeting can lead them to the nearby retail stores or the e-commerce platform of their choice.
The AI angle
With technology advancing every day, we can also employ other subsets of location targeting like geofencing, sending personalised messages when they enter a specific radius, or geo conquesting, rerouting your competitor’s customers.
AI can also be used for robust data collection and analysis. With such tech, not only can we target, for instance, the Maharashtrian audience with Marathi ads, we can also target the Marathi-speaking audience in Delhi, or Gujarat, or any other parts of the country. Further, generative AI tools can be leveraged to customise the communication for the specific audiences with AI design imaginary.
The Cookie(less) angle
Talking about data collection, with big players like Google and Apple committing a cookieless approach in the near future, the conversation has been in the news off late. Relying solely on first-party data, i.e. data provided directly by the user, means that the data will be way more accurate and actionable. Having given permission to use their data, users will be more susceptible to positively interacting with any targeting campaigns.
Conclusively, it has long been established that festive marketing is significant for brands to ramp up their business impact, and for brands to exercise our creative muscles to create something truly unique. When the larger festive sentiments remain the same, personalisation is key to standing out.
The author is co-founder and CEO of Grapes