Will brands leave pandemic behind this festive season?
Last two seasons, several big & small brands pitched for SMBs in their campaigns. But as things go back to normal after Covid, experts say, companies will now return to sales-oriented advertising
For the past two years, ‘buy local’ has been a key theme of many brands’ festive season campaigns. For instance, Google’s 2020 television campaign about discovering small businesses through search or Cadbury’s ‘Not Just A Cadbury Ad’ and ‘Shah Rukh Khan - My Ad’ campaigns. Several other brands including Instagram, HP, Amazon, Axis Bank, Zee, etc emphasized heavily on shopping local and promoting SMBs in their festive campaigns, predominantly because of the losses these businesses suffered because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
But as the country puts behind the worst of the pandemic and things go back to normal for industries, will the trend continue to dominate the advertising space during the upcoming festive season in 2022? Some of the leading creative heads from the industry believe otherwise.
L&K Saatchi & Saatchi Jt NCD Rohit Malkani says, “It (supporting local businesses) is a powerful piece of communication but I am not sure if it is going to be a trend. Obviously, we will keep seeing it from time to time depending on the context and relevance for brands but I don’t think that is going to be the defining factor this festive season.”
Kinnect ECD Mithun Mukherjee agrees, “Brands pitching to ‘shop local’ will always continue to remain relevant to the consumer. That said, this took centre stage in the past couple of years due to the impact of the pandemic on small and medium businesses. With this pitch, notable brands put focus on supporting local businesses and helping create a slightly more sustainable local ecosystem. However, this year, the war cry from brands would be a little different.
Taproot Dentsu Group Creative Director Auryndom Bose adds, “By itself, the ‘shop local’ narrative began quite a long time ago with CitiBank promoting Small Business Saturdays in the US, an activation that Barack Obama had once tweeted about. There also have been instances in the pre-social media era, where during a recession, brands shared and offered outdoor media space alongside big brands- shared real estate and promotion have been around for long enough. (However,) The scenarios have moved on from simply promoting local shops, but if a new context arises, it will be interesting to see what happens. In the end, it has to be current, it has to address a cultural or even economical context that is representative of the times.
What will be the brands pitching for this festive season
So, if not shop local, what are the brands going to promote this festive season? Based on their experiences of working with clients on upcoming festive campaigns, the industry insiders feel that the good-old sales-driven campaigns are going to make a comeback this festive season.
Malkani quips, “With the worst of the pandemic gone, there is a sense of optimism that is back in the market. The clients, in fact, do not want to refer to the pandemic in their festive communications anymore, i.e, there is not going to be much of ‘we are back’ kind of creatives. They want to move to different statements. Clearly, the pandemic hangover will not be there in the upcoming festive season campaigns.”
Bose shares a similar thought, “I think a lot of it is returning to basics. Now that most things have opened up, there is hardly any tension point left. Also the new normal is also feeling like yesterday’s news, people have moved on from the pandemic conversation to more generic celebratory ones, and also is the need to find fresher takes on Diwali. Celebrations are definitely back in full blast and maybe this is the year we come back to some diwali basics and return to more celebratory, sales-oriented advertising.”
