Brands and Festivals

1. Puja festival a great platform for brands to engage.
Many brands are planning to use the puja festival at various pandals to engage with the
consumers. The product range can be as wide as possible. Starting from soya bean nuggets to
aerated products brands can use this huge platform as a great place for engaging and delivering
experience to the worshippers who will throng in huge numbers across several pandals
especially in the East and North India. Brands must leverage this opportunity as they are able to
address a wide spectrum of audience from kids to adults to elderly people. And thus helping
brands to deliver that extra mile through brand experience. Let’s examine how brands can
enrich themselves and establish a strong connect with the audience at the various pandals.
1. Relevant Brand Connect: The essence of the brand should be captured with firsthand
experience. Vijayadhsami is the most auspicious day for most parents to make
their kids learn and start their beginning to step into the educational world. This is a
brilliant opportunity for writing instrument brands to connect with tomorrow’s
audience. Catch them young to stay connected with your brand. People especially in the
East are avid travelers and sincerely make use of their LTA to visit new holiday spots.
Travel and tourism brands should try and explore it to the maximum advantage by
capturing some of the tourist spots in the most dramatic manner to bring them closer to
the brand.
2. Right Brand Experience: Give a proper structure to deliver the brand experience. For
example an audio and television brand can create a mini auditorium to deliver great
sound and picture clarity to give the consumer that original and natural experience at
the venue. Brands like Dolby can really capitalize by educating and promoting their
sound features with live demonstration and firsthand experience.
3. Interactive engagement: Make use of the best technology to make your consumer
engagement interactive. Touch screens and use of apps will intrigue customers to take
maximum advantage. With so many Pandals located at various places, downloading of
apps at the venue which gives you all information on various activities at various
pandals will excite the consumers to down load the information using their mobile.
Some famous devotional songs can also be made available for downloading at the venue
to bring in some emotional connect with the festival and the relevant brand.
4. Relevant Target audience: You will witness people from all strata of the society queuing
up at all pandals. So one need not worry about the brand fit to be present at the
pandals. A mixed population can be reached with the relevant product and brand and

2. thus giving you an immense opportunity for branding your product at various touch
points.
With the economy slow down and limited marketing budgets, I am sure most brands will
use this platform to propagate their brands in the most engaging manner. What’s more
with festivals like Puja becoming popular year after year it’s one of the best platform for
marketers to pump in money and increase their brand saliency.
Ganapathy Viswanathan, Independent Communication Consultant, in
Communication, Branding and Public Relations. He has worked with several large
agencies such as Ogilvy & Mather, Lowe, Mudra Group,2020 MSL.