How to plan a festive campaign in India
Most festive plans are built on calendar months and launched on instinct. The festival moves every year, and the searching that comes before it runs to a timetable you can read.
Work back from the festival date, not the calendar month. Decide whether the season is for winning new buyers or harvesting existing demand, be visible before the searching starts, and weight budget to the demand curve: half the extra searching for Diwali gifts happens in the last 7 days before Diwali, while corporate gifting runs about 17 days ahead. Set up the measurement before launch.
A festive campaign in India is planned against the busiest, most expensive and most crowded weeks of the year. The plans that work are built backwards from the festival date and timed to when people actually look for things, which our festive search calendar measures across five seasons.
Work back from the festival, not the month
Put the dates at the top of the plan and count backwards from them. In 2026 Dussehra falls on 20 October, Dhanteras on 6 November and Diwali on 8 November. A plan built on calendar months breaks every year, because the festival moves by up to three weeks: Diwali fell on 20 October in 2025 and on 31 October in 2024.
Decide what the season is for
Festive weeks can recruit new buyers, harvest demand that already exists, or build memory for the year ahead. Each needs different media, different creative and a different measure of success. A plan that tries to do all three usually ends up doing the middle one by default, because harvesting is what the dashboards reward.
Be visible before the searching starts
Reach that lands after people have started searching arrives while they shortlist, not before. In the calendar, a quarter of the season’s extra searching for Diwali gifts is done 16 days before Diwali and half of it 7 days before. Searches for Diwali sales are half done 13 days before, and corporate gifting runs earliest, a quarter done 34 days out. Brand-building activity belongs in the weeks before those points, not on top of them.
Phase the budget to the demand curve
Weight spend to when the category is searching. Build reach in the weeks before the curve rises, put conversion budget into the steepest part of the climb, and pull back quickly after Diwali, when the extra searching for gifts, decoration and sales is over within days. Decoration comes last among the gift, clothing and home searches, half done 5 days before Diwali.
Make work that could only be yours
Every brand runs its festive film in the same three weeks, so generic warmth disappears. Distinctive assets, an idea the brand can repeat every year, and a genuine reason to be part of the festival at all are what separate the work. We set out what gives a brand that standing in what a brand owes a festival.
Give the moment a name, and keep it
A recurring festive moment with its own name can become the way people ask for it. In the 2021 festive sale period, 23% of searches for Flipkart’s sale used the event’s own name, Big Billion Days, and 28% of searches for Amazon’s used Great Indian Festival; the rest asked for the platform and the word sale. By 2025 the figures were 67% and 38%. Search data cannot show why the gap opened, but a name kept the same year after year is an asset that a new campaign line every October cannot build.
Lock production, stock and approvals early
Media inventory, production crews, printers, couriers and the people who approve work are all at their busiest in October. Book them before the season, agree who signs off and by when, and make sure the stock and delivery promises behind the campaign will survive the demand it creates. A festive campaign that sells out on day two has wasted the rest of its budget.
Set up the measurement before launch
Agree the festive window, the comparison with last year’s window, a holdout region or audience, and the share and contribution measures before anything goes live. Everything rises in Diwali weeks, so a result read afterwards will look like success whatever happened. The method is in measuring a festive campaign when everything goes up.
Plan the days after Diwali
The day after Diwali, gifting and sale searches collapse, but demand does not disappear. For many categories the weeks that follow lead into the wedding season, and vehicle dealers expected marriage-season buying to carry demand on after the 2025 festival. Decide in advance what runs then and what is switched off, so the post-festive budget is a plan rather than whatever is left.
Sources
- Colleviate Festive Search Calendar, India, Colleviate, October 2026
- FADA releases October’25 and 42 days festive period vehicle retail data, Federation of Automobile Dealers Associations, 7 November 2025
Questions we get asked
When should a Diwali campaign start?
Before the searching does. Across five seasons, a quarter of the extra searching for Diwali gifts was done 16 days before Diwali, and a quarter of corporate gifting searches 34 days before, so brand-building reach should land in the weeks ahead of those points, with conversion spend concentrated as the searching climbs.
How should a festive budget be phased?
In line with the demand curve: reach before the curve rises, the heaviest conversion spend through the steepest part of the climb in the final fortnight, and a sharp cut after Diwali, when gifting and sale searches fall away within days.
When is Diwali in 2026?
Diwali falls on Sunday 8 November 2026 and Dussehra on 20 October, according to the central government’s list of holidays for 2026. Dhanteras, the main buying day, falls two days before Diwali, on 6 November.
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