The festive season is that time of the year when everyone gears up with new spirit to celebrate the festivals across the globe. It is no different in India. Here, the festivity starts with Dussehra and goes all the way upto Christmas and New Year. People celebrate this time with get-togethers, food, vacations and loads of shopping. The shopping spree of the people is being triggered by various offers and the mega sales offered by both online and offline retail chains. People become shopaholic during this time as festivity also marks exchange of gifts among the near and dear ones. Not only clothing, apparels, ornaments, automobiles people tend to buy electronic appliances, smartphones, and IT products also.
This festive season also sees shopping fanaticism among people. According to a study by Oath, a Verizon subsidiary, the online shopping burst begins as early as mid-September and the sales has increased 29% year on year in September 2018. It is a record high for India’s festive shopping season online. The study also reveals that this year 42% of shoppers bought an electronic item which makes it the top selling category in online shopping.
Elaborating on this, Erin Chao, Head of Platforms, APAC, Oath says, “The huge volume of data points across our brands gives us a comprehensive understanding of consumers in India and their behaviour. These deep insights in turn are helping our advertisers to make sense of audiences’ preferences and market trends at a very strategic level, to put in place data-driven marketing strategies during this crucial season.”
Counterpoint report predicted that the smartphone sales during the festive season will hit a record number both in terms of volume and value. The reason behind this would be the mega sale offered by the online retail players such as Flipkart’s Big Billion Day and Amazon’s the Great Indian Festival Sale. These annual sale encourages exclusive online launches, aggressive offers and deals ranging from price cuts, cashback offers, exchange offers, no cost EMIs and a bunch of other promotional offers.
Industry Reactions
Festive campaigns by brands
On the occasion to celebrate festivals in a bigger and brighter way, brands have come up with campaigns like TVCs, offers, schemes etc. This is a way to reach customers in a more appealing and attractive way. Campaigns are a strategic step taken by brands to promote their products and also increase sales.
TECNO
To celebrate the festive season, TECNO launched ‘HarSuratKhoobsurat’ campaign, a TV ad campaign for new range of camera-centric smartphones. The campaign is focused to celebrate the beauty of an Indian woman.
Gaurav Tikoo
CMO, TRANSSION India
“Har Surat Khoobsurat is not only a campaign for us but it is a philosophy that we truly believe in. We at TECNO are committed to delivering best camera and selfie experience across key price segments. And this festive season our new TECNO CAMON AI range of smartphones aims at celebrating beauty of every Indian and empowering them to pose proudly in any light condition. Through this campaign we want to better connect with them and revolutionise the Best Anylight photography experience. And to perfectly sum this idea up we rehashed the evergreen hit by Bombay Vikings, Kya Surat hai in our TV commercial. It highlights the khoobsurat features of the powerful CAMON AI smartphones that capture the beautiful moments with great perfection.”
Canon
Canon is also not behind in this race of pleasing its customers with best offers. The company initiated a campaign on its social media platform called #SpreadTheFestivity. This initiative boosts the users to multi-fold their celebration. Through an influencer engagement on its social platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, users are being encouraged to share their moments of spreading happiness to their near ones and the community at large, be it gifting your parents or donating food to the needy. The winners will be gratified in the second week of November. This activity is being organized as part of the organizations community driven initiative on digital media, called #ShiftYourFocus, wherein the social media users are encouraged to participate in issues that require their attention.
Kazutada Kobayashi
President and CEO, Canon India
“Festivals are occasions which create life time memories and we at Canon are proud to have played an instrumental role over the last two decades in helping our customers capture and preserve these memories. With customer delight as a pivotal element to everything we do at Canon, we are glad to enable our customers with more reasons to rejoice. Through pan-India initiatives and customized offers, users can avail festive benefits on their favorite Canon products and participate in initiatives specially curated for them. At Canon, we believe that joy is doubled when shared. Like every initiative, we would also like to extend the festivities to our communities. Our CSR activities will ensure that our adopted villages also enjoy the festivities in full spirit.”
Freecharge
To add to the excitement of festivities, the digital marketplace, Freecharge has launched its festive season campaign-What’s the Big Deal. This campaign is aimed towards deepening the consumer connect by driving customer sentiment for the brand. The campaign consist of two films which highlights Freecharge’s commitment of enhancing customer experiences and making them hassle-free. Perfectly timed for the festive season, these films directly target the young and smart millennials.
Airtel
Like other telecom brands, Airtel has has also delighted its customers on this Diwali with exclusive benefits with #AirtelThanks program. Under #AirtelThanks program all Airtel customers who commit a monthly ARPU of Rs. 100 and above (for mobile) will receive exciting additional benefits at no extra charge. These benefits will include access to premium digital content, great offers on smartphones and online shopping vouchers. The higher the monthly ARPU commitment, the more benefits a customer gets.These customers will also get red carpet customer care for service and network related issues to add to their experience.
Vani Venkatesh
Chief Marketing Officer, Bharti Airtel
“We are obsessed with delighting our customers and our aim is to enable a differentiated experience for them. #AirtelThanks is our biggest initiative to celebrate our relationships with customers by making them feel extra special. This is a win-win program for our customers and partners. It offers brands the opportunity to reach customers with highly targeted offerings. We have received very enthusiastic response from our partners and look forward to building #AirtelThanks into a large scale ‘telco-brand’ collaboration property.”
VODAFONE
With time Diwali celebrations have changed, losing some of its familial togetherness to the easy lure of the digital world. So to encourage people to celebrate Diwali with family by keeping the devices aside, Vodafone launched a heart-warming video under its #LookUp campaign. Vodafone in this video boost the feeling of togetherness among the customers.
Siddharth Banerjee
EVP – Marketing, Vodafone India
“In the hyper-connected world, Vodafone again reiterates the need for real conversations, especially on occasions and festivals. Our #LookUp campaign has resonated well with our audience- generating online and offline talkability and driving up brand preference for Vodafone. Hence, after delighting our audiences on Valentine’s Day / Father’s Day and Friendship Day with #LookUp messages, this time around, we are extending our #LookUp philosophy to Diwali encouraging viewers to celebrate with family and friends – in essence, the connections that really matter.”
