Why Brands Need To Tune Into The 'New Normal' Consumer Sentiment, This Festive Season

While a global pandemic created a whole new way of living, terms like ‘new normal’ have become a new reality for us. People learned to adapt to it, by keeping their lifestyle intact and substituting their outdoor activities with indoor equivalents - work from home, indoor workout sessions, virtual birthday parties, and the most recent – online festive celebrations. The constraints of the lockdown only drew consumers closer to celebrating quality time with people they cherish, and led to the rise of online aartis, darshans, iftaar parties and other celebrations like family poojas on Zoom, e-gifts and e-rakhis, Ganpati visarjan close to devotees’ homes and even Navratri dance sessions at home!

This naturally led to a rise in social media conversations around festivals. According to The Distillery, Star India’s intelligence centre for data-driven business decisions powered by technology, we witnessed a 46% rise around festival celebrations and wishes, with a 49% rise in discussions around festive shopping plans!

Riding high on the sentiment of ‘nostalgia’ & ‘hope’ these themes were also spotted in brands ads / targeted digital assets that brought alive creative ways to keep the festive spirit alive!

As one would expect, many of the conversations were around gifting and shopping with great interest in online launches and discounts.

Some of the largest spikes in conversations were about buying from gifting platforms, digital payments, do-it-yourself or homemade gifts and saw a six-fold increase about products made-in-India. The chatter extended to platforms like e-commerce sites for sending gifts to loved ones.

With consumer sentiment riding high, brands are looking to maximise return on investment during the festive season. The Star Network, with over 70+ channels in 8 languages and a reach of 700 Mn+ viewers a month on TV, can be a natural partner to your brand when it comes to:

• Driving regional impact to maximise presence in priority markets through premium associations

• Engaging the audiences and serving them content/ ads tailored to their interests

While there is little doubt that the pandemic has affected many aspects of our lives, consumers still want to celebrate. Brands can capitalise on this positive sentiment by connecting with consumers on relevant platforms, ahead of and during the upcoming festive season.

Get ready to celebrate a dhamakedar festive season, as brands discover a ‘new normal’ in the marketing strategy!