Diwali gifting campaigns 2026: how brands made gifts personal
Five of the eight campaigns sell something to give or to wear at the festival. None of the five reports leads with a discount. Each ad picks a worry or a wish instead. Our Diwali marketing ideas guide covers the full year of planning. Here we look only at what this season showed.
Bla Bli Blu, a gifting brand, started #SayNoToGifts with a made-up body called the Indian Gifting Council. It put out formal-looking notices that banned generic, meaningless gifts. A brand film followed, set in a retirement home where dry fruits, soan papdi and chocolate talk about why people stopped choosing them. The founders say in the report that they want Indians to rethink gifting. The report names no agency and gives no results (afaqs, 28 October 2026).
ROYCE' Chocolate took a quieter road. Its film, Not quite ordinary, shows odd, painted scenes built around the chocolates. It supports a limited gift collection. The report names no results (adgully, 26 October 2026).
Éntisi Chocolatier ran its first ad campaign. It launched a Gifting Concierge, a service that handles your festive gifts. It also ran funny reels on common gifting mix-ups. The line was "You make the list. Éntisi takes care of the gifting." The report names no agency and gives no results (adgully, 24 October 2026).
Heer by GIVA turned the same season the other way. Its film is set in a family and shows a woman buying something for herself next to gifts for others. The brand wants women to put themselves on the gifting list. The report lists two jewellery collections and gives no agency (afaqs, 23 October 2026). Gargi by PNGS asked women to enjoy being noticed. Its film shows cameras, a dashcam and even a satellite turning toward a woman in statement earrings. The report lists film, print, outdoor hoardings and in-store displays (adgully, 28 October 2026).
On 23 October 2026, BestMediaInfo looked at ten beauty and personal care brands. The themes were ritual, friendship, small acts of kindness and time for oneself. One brand revisits a Diwali bathing ritual. Another talks about dressing up for yourself. The roundup gives no spend or reach figures.
Asian Paints made a musical film with Ogilvy. It treats the work of getting the home ready as part of the celebration. Indian Television reported it on 19 October 2026 and gave no figures.
Our reading: each of these ads names one worry or one wish in a single line. A buyer who is tired in the last two weeks of the season needs that. A discount can be copied by a rival in an hour. A worry that the ad has named for the buyer is harder to copy.
Creator and influencer marketing for Diwali 2026
Bla Bli Blu did not begin with the film. The report says the first push ran on meme and infotainment pages, with marketing creators and creator-led content. Instamart did something similar. A creator in Madurai had his address misused for hundreds of cash on delivery orders, and the clips went viral. Instamart then sent him a surprise set of home and electronics products. This was part of its Quick India Movement Sale, with the line "no returns this time". The report says the post crossed 25 million Instagram views in 22 hours, and names the agency Lesssgo. It gives no figure for orders or sales (Indian Television, 19 October 2026).
The spend reports point the same way. Kinnect is a creator marketing firm. It expects festive creator spend in India to grow 30 to 35 percent this year. It says creators now join from the start, not after the film is ready (Social Samosa, 27 October 2026). A Storyboard18 report of 26 August 2026 passes on figures that Moneycontrol attributed to Qoruz, a creator data platform. They see festive influencer spend reaching ₹900 crore in 2026, up 29 percent from about ₹700 crore. The same report says nano and micro creators made up 75 percent of festive creator participation last season. It adds that the biggest 10 to 15 percent of brands account for nearly 65 percent of spend.
MARS Cosmetics shows a way to check them. Its marketing vice president says the brand looks at more than views. It counts brand searches, website visits, affiliate sales and new customers (Social Samosa, 27 October 2026). If you are new to this, our influencer marketing glossary entry explains the terms, and the influencer marketing guide shows how to start.
Our reading: a view count is easy to show and hard to bank. Instamart's number tells us people watched. It does not tell us the sale worked.
Quick commerce and outdoor ads at Diwali: what do the numbers say?
Quick commerce means apps that deliver in minutes, such as Blinkit, Zepto and Instamart. Storyboard18 (26 August 2026) quotes Gopa Menon of the agency theblurr. He says premium spots there, such as homepage banners, could cost 30 to 40 percent more in Diwali. A normal month costs less. He also says brands are moving 15 to 20 percent more of their digital spend to quick commerce this season. Prashant Puri of AdLift says in the same report that there is no single price benchmark, because rates vary by placement, category and city.
The two men also size the market differently. Puri puts it at about ₹4,000 crore in 2025 and ₹6,000 crore in 2026. Menon says about ₹3,000 crore and about ₹4,900 crore. The gap shows how loose such numbers are. Treat them as estimates.
Outdoor ads (OOH, out of home) work the same way. Storyboard18 (19 August 2026) reports that industry players expect festive outdoor revenue to grow 15 to 20 percent. Times OOH expects digital screens (DOOH) to give about 30 percent of its festive revenue. MOMS Outdoor puts its own share at 10 to 12 percent. The report also quotes FICCI-EY 2026, which puts DOOH at 18 percent of all outdoor revenue. WPP's TYNY report puts it under 5 percent, because it counts only inventory that can be planned and bought. Same medium, two definitions, two answers.
Our reading: a small shop will not buy a quick commerce banner or a screen at a large airport. The takeaway is the buyer's habit. People now search and shop fast, on phones, in the last days. A local business can meet them with a clear listing, fast replies and a pickup or same-day option. Our outdoor advertising page covers the places where a screen does make sense.
Regional and local Diwali advertising: why does it work?
Storyboard18 (1 October 2026) quotes ShareChat and Moj. They say over 150,000 certified regional creators post on their apps from more than 4,200 pincodes. The report adds that 61 percent of those creators are in Tier-2, Tier-3 and rural areas. It says brands running highly local festival campaigns see an average 50 percent engagement lift over standard national creatives. The report notes that most of these figures come from the two platforms' own data and are not independently checked.
Kinnect says India has hundreds of Diwali ways to celebrate. They differ by language, rituals and what people buy (Social Samosa, 27 October 2026). MARS Cosmetics put glam stations at Garba venues in Ahmedabad and Rajkot, and ran its own plans for Kolkata (same Social Samosa piece).
Our reading: one film in one language cannot say everything. A shop in Surat, one in Guwahati and one in Chennai do not sell Diwali the same way. Change the greeting, the sweet, the colour or the delivery cut-off date for each city you serve.
When do Diwali shoppers start looking for gifts and deals?
BestMediaInfo (24 September 2026) reports on a festive study by Datum Intelligence. It says 36 percent of Diwali shoppers had begun looking at products by 1 August. The figure was 53 percent by 1 September and 70 percent by 1 October. Datum expects 84 percent by 1 November. Only 24 percent bought after seeing a brand once. So 76 percent needed to see it more than once. YouTube creators (40 percent) and marketplace homepages (39 percent) led as places to find products. No route reached half of shoppers.
Meta has a Festive Accelerator 2026 playbook. Indian Television reported on it in October 2026. Meta tells brands to plan for about five months. That runs from Diwali to Christmas, year end, wedding season and Republic Day sales. Meta says shoppers plan about six weeks ahead of a festival, then rush in the last 48 hours. It also says one in two festive shoppers follows creators. These figures come from Meta's own playbook.
Our reading: in the final days before Diwali (8 November 2026), you are in the last stage. The people who will buy from you have already seen a few brands. Stay simple, give clear dates, and plan a second wave for the wedding season. Our marketing calendar for India lists what follows Diwali. A shopper sees an ad once and forgets it, so frequency (how often the same person sees you) matters as much as reach.
How much do brands spend on Diwali advertising?
AdEx means advertising expenditure, the total money spent on ads. On 21 September 2026, BestMediaInfo quoted Swarali Halepeti of dentsu India. She puts the 2026 festive market at about ₹60,000 crore. That is roughly 15 to 20 percent above 2025. WPP Media South Asia expects growth of about 9 to 10 percent. Three other agencies put festive AdEx between ₹50,000 crore and ₹58,000 crore. WPP Media also says October to December usually gives about 28 to 30 percent of the year's AdEx. These are agency estimates, not audited totals.
A Social Samosa piece of 23 September 2026 asks if a ₹50 lakh budget can beat a ₹5 crore one. Megha Nair of dentsu India cites Nielsen research. Campaigns under one million impressions reached 229 different people per 1,000 impressions. Campaigns above 50 million reached 83. She tells a ₹50 lakh brand to pick one or two valuable audiences and one sharp offer. Muralidhar T of WPP Media South Asia warns against copying a big advertiser's plan across many channels. He suggests two priority markets or one occasion.
Our reading: nobody in these reports shows that a bigger budget gave a better sale. The advice for a small budget is the same in both pieces. Do fewer things, in fewer places, for a clearer buyer.
What the Diwali 2026 ad reports do not tell us
- Seven of the eight campaign reports give no result at all. Instamart gives views. Nobody gives sales, visits or enquiries.
- Most forecasts were written in August and September, before the season started. They are forecasts, not outcomes.
- Several figures come from a platform or agency that sells the thing it measures. We say so wherever a report does.
- We do not know which campaign worked. We can say what each tried, and what a small business could try at its own size.
We help with this work on our pages for creative campaigns, social media marketing and influencer marketing. If you sell everyday packaged goods or sell direct to buyers, see our pages for fast-moving consumer goods and direct to consumer (D2C) and ecommerce brands. If you pay a creator, read our guide to the ASCI code on disclosure first.
