From flat summer to ‘second summer,’ adex warms across TV, digital and commerce

New Delhi: A slow and sluggish summer, laced with unpredictability, had forced durable makers to switch off their ad engines earlier this year. Along with unprecedented patterns of downpour, what was also falling was consumer sentiment.

Unseasonal rains, weak demand, and sluggish sales left brands staring at the kind of quiet nobody in the appliance business likes: the kind where warehouses stay stocked and marketing budgets go cold.

But as the sentiment began to rise again, thanks to the government’s GST cuts and the onset of the festive season, those same brands dusted off their ad playbooks and turned the temperature up in their media plans.

This marked the onset of a “second summer,” where brands redirected dormant budgets into tactical, offer-led campaigns across TV, digital, and e-commerce.

Slow to surge

According to Girish Hingorani, Vice President - Marketing (Consumer Products) & Corporate Communications, Blue Star, the unusually flat summer disrupted the usual rhythm of promotions. “The summer was unusually flat, which forced us to recalibrate our spending. When a large part of the country is experiencing rainfall and consumer sentiment for summer products is low, it’s only natural for us to scale back,” he said.

Blue Star reduced ad spends during the summer, particularly on television and digital, to stay aligned with the market’s slowdown. But the GST cut, which brought down the rate on air-conditioners from 28% to 18%, changed the game.

“The GST reduction created an opportunity for us to reignite consumer interest. We’re positioning our messaging to appeal to that pent-up demand from consumers who were waiting for affordability to improve before purchasing an air conditioner,” said Hingorani.

The brand’s focus is now on affordability-driven messaging that ties together price, energy efficiency, and long-term savings. “We’re ensuring the consumer clearly perceives a triple advantage, saving on the product cost, electricity bills, and taxes,” Hingorani added, noting that spends are now concentrated on television and digital news platforms for faster impact.

Chiming in, Tushar Gupta, Director of Operations, Thermocool Home Appliances, affirmed the advent of the “second summer.”

“This festive cycle is very much being used as a second summer. The synergy of GST cuts, increased affordability, and the revival of consumer confidence has created strong buying intent,” Gupta told BestMediaInfo.com.

Gupta explained that the company’s key performance indicators this year are centred on driving volume growth, improving conversion ratios, and capturing incremental market share, particularly across Tier-II and Tier-III towns.

The shift has also affected product positioning. “The GST cut has given us more pricing and product-positioning flexibility. We’re leveraging the benefit to bring premium segments within reach while communicating value through innovation and efficiency,” he said.

Gupta stressed that while promotions are inevitable, brand equity remains non-negotiable. “Our promotions are designed to drive maximum perception of value, rather than obliterate it. We’re leveraging bundled promotions, longer warranties, and experiential interaction as opposed to drastic price reductions,” he said.

Agencies see tactical tilt but stable mix

From the agency side, the festive surge has prompted renewed scrutiny over how brands are dividing their spends between storytelling and sales.

According to Bhairav Shanth, Co-founder, ITW Universe, the balance between brand-building and tactical communication remains relatively stable.

“We are still seeing a similar mix of brand and tactical campaigns. During this festive stretch, an emphasis on offer-led campaigns is usually category-led. For example, we are seeing apparel brands do that, but so far we have not seen any noticeable change in the AdEx mix compared to previous years,” he said.

However, the media mix is evolving fast. “It no longer remains a TV versus digital narrative. Brands that are launching new products or categories whose sales usually peak in the festive season are allocating budgets towards digital options, including CTV, which has come to the fore particularly for consumer brands whose TG skews a bit more premium,” Shanth added.

On the operational front, compressed timelines and fluctuating sentiment have made planning precision essential. “Our planning teams use multiple tools to plan campaigns that blend both platform data and third-party data to track the progress of spends in near real time and make adjustments as needed,” he said.

At White Rivers Media, the pattern is clear: brands are chasing agility, not just amplification. Mitchelle Rozario Jansen, Senior Vice President - Business Strategy & Growth, said, “The GST cuts have definitely lifted sentiment, especially for discretionary categories like electronics, auto, and fashion. But instead of inflating total budgets, most brands are redistributing spends more aggressively into the festive quarter. The approach is to ride the wave of optimism, not outspend it.”

She noted a “clear tilt towards offer-led communication,” but one that doesn’t come at the cost of brand depth. “Smarter brands are finding ways to make both coexist, a sales film that still carries emotional recall, or influencer partnerships that drive action without feeling transactional,” Jansen said.

On the media frontlines, Jansen observed a widening gap between intent and execution. “TV still anchors mass visibility for larger categories, but the real acceleration is happening across CTV, digital video, and commerce-linked media. For many of our clients, digital now builds the first impression while TV sustains familiarity,” she said.

She added, “With planning cycles shrinking, efficiency is being built into the process itself. We are front-loading analytics, locking performance data and platform insights before creative production begins. Real-time decisioning tools are helping us shift spends dynamically, ensuring minimal wastage even in high-demand weeks.”

Summer vs sentiment

If summer left air-conditioners gathering dust and marketers holding their breath, the festive quarter has brought both back to life, just not in the way the industry expected. 

With GST cuts fanning affordability and consumer confidence trickling back, brands that had gone into hibernation a few months ago are suddenly burning through their deferred budgets. Only this time, it’s not the mercury doing the work, it’s marketing.

For most durable makers, the festive season has become less about capitalising on climate and more about controlling sentiment. The heat may come and go, but optimism, when timed right, sells better. And while this “second summer” may have been triggered by policy and pent-up demand, it has also forced marketers to rethink the idea of seasonality itself.

In a country where the monsoon can ruin a sales cycle and Diwali can revive it overnight, durability is no longer just about appliances, it’s about strategy. For now, the air may have cooled, but the marketing engines are humming again, running on offers, optimism, and the hope that this time, the season stays switched on a little longer.