Creative tropes brands need to steer clear of this festive season

New Delhi: With the vibrant festivals of Janmashtami, Ganesh Chaturthi, Dussehra and Diwali taking the stage one after the other, brands across categories are donning their creative hats and lighting their diyas of promotion.  

While the passion the Indian audience has for their culture is a strong point to inflate promotions on, overused festive narratives can often backfire on the brand.  

BestMediaInfo.com spoke to various creatives to garner their opinions on some overused festive narratives, cliche visuals and overlooked mistakes that brands need to avoid as they jump onto the festive bandwagon.  

According to Abhik Santara, Director & CEO ^ a t o m, there are no mistakes in advertising and creativity; there are only missed opportunities.  

Shivani Kamdar, Associate Creative Director, SoCheers added that while it's imperative for brands to harp on the thrills of the festive season, it's equally crucial for them to avoid any pitfalls that could dilute the essence of the campaign.

She said, "Brands all want to make an ad that adds to their festive sparkle and not dim it."

Kartik Smetacek, CCO, L&K Saatchi & Saatchi, highlighted that the biggest challenge facing festive campaigns is clutter.  

He added, “Most advertising during this period is promotion-led and tends to look and sound the same. The increased use of AI-generated imagery has only compounded the problem.”  

The infectious ‘feel good’ syndrome

Most Indian festivals are beacons of hope; they are phases from mythology igniting victory of good against evil and are overall, a fuzzy bubble wrapped around chaos. Brands do not shy away from going all out to take the positivity route.  

“But what happens when all these spots start looking, feeling, or even sounding the same?” 

That’s the question Adyasha Ray Tomar, Creative Director at McCann Worldgroup, finds brewing at the centre of so many similar feel-good promotions.  

She added that it is an unwritten, unsaid pact in advertising that festive ads in India must ‘feel good’ but often brands make such hope ‘generic.’

Tomar recalled the overused happy family narrative, the dadas-dadis, the mithai, the vibrant colours, the rangolis, and everything that screams festival and drew attention to how most of the brands capture just that, in the bid to highlight positivity. 

She added, “But can we have hope that is not this generic? Maybe hope that is coded in the brands’ language.” 

Breaking free from the ‘yeh toh dekha hua hai’ cycle 

Talking about generic campaigns, Juneston Mathana, Executive Creative Director, Ogilvy, added that brands must realise that using repetitive narratives is nothing less than whispering in a thunderstorm.  

“The last thing you want is for the consumers to say, ‘Arre yeh toh dekha hua hai’,” Mathana added while emphasising that advertising is about creating a connection, an emotion that stays with the consumer long after the ad is over. “I believe that clichés might get a nod of recognition, but they won’t spark that connection or even the conversation,” he added.  

Navin Talreja, Founding Partner at The Womb, is in tandem with the insight to stay away from generic narratives and added that staying away from the ‘sameness’ in advertising would be a good beginning to advertise during the festive season.  

According to Anadi Sah, NCD and Founding Partner at tgthr, a good starting point for this can be to research what has been done in the past so it’s not repeated. He added, “Explore a fresh perspective for the audience, far from their imagination yet genuine and relatable.” 

Challenging cliches  

While cliches are a safety net that brands often fall into, for a ‘tried and tested’ route to promotions, Mathana believes that every brand is different.  

He added, “It’s our job as creatives to challenge this mindset with fresh ideas and, more importantly, the conviction that what has been presented is what is right for their brand.”

Mathana believes that while "safe playing" is what the client asks for, there’s also value in taking calculated risks that reflect the evolving cultural landscape.  

Beating cliches with basics? 

While brands may fall back on cliches as a form of safe play, it does not harm brands to adapt the basics of the festive season but with their own brand twist. 

Echoing this sentiment, Santara explained that family, homecoming, and gifting are festival staples and brands just need to find a new spin on them. 

He added, “Avoid the trap of over-complicating things with a “unique” insight that’s as useful as a screen door on a submarine.” 

Create to communicate, not compete 

The festive season is also the time most brands unleash their creative prowess to ‘stand apart’ and gain an edge over other communicators. But most times, this makes them lose sight of the ultimate picture: capturing your brand voice with a festive touch.  

Santara opined that advertisers need to skip the esoteric, niche debates and focus on what gets their audience to say, “I need that!” rather than “What does that even mean?” 

Be cautious while marrying ‘wokeism’ to festivity

While the festive season is milked for all its bright glory, a lot of brands also tend to marry wokeism to their festive messaging, which often falls face-first into backlash.  

Tomar addressed such forced narratives and claimed, “If your narrative doesn’t require it, rest assured your audience sees through your tokenism.”  

She upheld the belief that creatives need to aim to follow the thin line between creating something true to human insight while also sparking change or action.  

Sah added that brands need to avoid stereotyping or reflecting any social biases that exist. He believes that testing the script with a small group that comes from diverse cultures and sensibilities might be a great idea to explore.  

What brands NEED to do 

Despite the wrongs a lot of advertisers fall prey to, the festive season is also the time brands can do a lot of things right in their communication.   

According to Mathana, advertising has always been about being relatable and targeted to a specific audience. He cited the example of Cadbury Dairy Milk’s “Not Just a Cadbury Ad,” which shifts focus from the conventional cliches to the idea of supporting community. 

Talreja added that changing the narrative is supercritical and advertisers need to explore stories that are fresh and deeply insightful. He cited the example of Saregama Carvaan’s Shor nahi Sangeet! campaign. 

A Diwali ad that does not look like a Diwali ad is the need of the hour, according to Tomar. 

Tomar cited the example of HP’s #GoLocal campaign and described, “They stepped out of the house, they used their product in an inventive way, they walked the talk and they made a magic combination of inspiring the audience to do good, leaving the audience feeling good!”

Smetacek added that standing apart needs to be the most important criterion for festive campaigns, pushing the envelope on distinctiveness, both in idea and execution. 

Sah cited the diminishing attention span and added that brands need to trim all the not-so-needed details and pack not more than three high points spread across the story so it doesn’t sound too long and boring. He also added, “Be authentic and don’t ignore any cultural nuances.” 

Creating work that’s localised and not merely translated is always appreciated by the audience as they find the brand more connected to them, according to Shah. 

He highlighted, “Brands should consider having a festive campaign built upon specific traditions and insight of the audiences belonging to specific regions and segments.” 

Santara believes that brands need to activate all possible touchpoints and work on more interactive creative content that can grab better attention and engagement. 

He added that advertisers need to prioritise brand recall over promotion of a new product category during the festive season.  

He also added, “Your ad should be out there before the festival madness, and hit those high-frequency notes during peak time,” while highlighting the importance of staying true to the core brand values.  

Sah observed that festive campaigns are also about sales. Hence, it becomes imperative for brands to choose the nature of the campaign, which might either be emotional or functional.  

He added, “Both of them have their importance, while an emotional campaign might generate brand love and a functional campaign might increase sales but a cocktail of both doesn’t taste well, missing on either of the goals.”