After floods and pandemic washout, brands betting big on Onam this year

Onam festivities this year have begun with much more positive sentiments amid a resurgent market. The festivities have remained subdued in the last couple of years due to the global pandemic, while the devastating floods in 2018 robbed all the joy of festival. Thus, there is great expectation from the Onam festival in 2022 by brands and advertisers for a bumper season.

The biggest festival in Kerala, Onam sees a spurt in purchases across categories, especially apparel, jewellery, consumer durables, household electronics and more. The buying frenzy and the plethora of offers by brands have transformed Onam into a mega shopping carnival from being a mere harvest festival.

Not just brands and advertisers, newspapers and TV channels, too, are expecting increased spending during the Onam season. Brands and marketers are also sanguine about the festive season. They ardently hope for a revival in consumer sentiments. This Onam season in unique in many respects, as it is coming after two years of pandemic-induced shutdown, which was preceded by two massive floods that disturbed normal life across the state.

Apart from consumer durables, analysts expect increased spends by edu-tech, textiles, jewellery, etc.

Brands are making the most out of the festive season with discounts and offers. OYO, for example, is offering discounted stays with rooms starting from Rs 399 onwards as part of its Onam campaign. Guests will have the opportunity to choose from more than 7,000 rooms available across different categories of hotels in South India. The scheme will benefit travelers who plan to visit Kerala to partake in the lively festivities.

Some of the other Onam-focused campaigns by brands include Aditya Birla Group-owned linen brand Linen Club’s unique campaign – ‘Homecoming’ to mark the Onam celebration. Similarly, Godrej Appliances has launched an Onam-focused TVC.  

With the lifting of COVID-related restrictions, people have returned to shops and malls with renewed enthusiasm and vigour. The midnight sale, fashioned like the Black Friday sale in the US, at Lulu International Shopping Mall in Kerala, received tremendous response in Thiruvananthapuram and Kochi last month. The alacrity was palpable as shoppers were seen thronging en masse at the shopping malls to grab whatever they could lay their hands on.

Brands back with vengeance

The pertinent question is: Have the ad spends returned to the pre-Covid levels? What kinds of shifts have been witnessed in brands’ behaviour, especially after the effects of the pandemic ebbed? 

Varghese Chandy, Vice-President - Marketing & Advertising Sales, Corporate Publicity, Malayala Manorama

“This Onam, brands are back with a vengeance,” says Varghese Chandy, Vice-President - Marketing & Advertising Sales, Corporate Publicity, Malayala Manorama Co Ltd, in a conversation with Adgully. According to Chandy, the advertising activity by brands in the build-up towards Onam has been good.

“In terms of ad revenues, we are nearing 2019 numbers, which we see as a big positive and a sign of strong market revival. The last four Onams were subdued because of floods in Kerala during the first two years and because of COVID in the latter two years. So, Malayalees are looking forward to a big Onam celebration this year and the brands are planning to spend to maximise sales during the festivities. The Malayalam month of Chingam, which falls on August 17, marks the beginning of an auspicious period in Kerala and is considered to be a good time for new beginnings and purchases. This year, we have a longer window between Chingam 1st and Onam (September 8). So, we are sure that brands will look to take advantage of this longer shopping window this year,” explains Chandy.

Chandy is sanguine about the growth of the print medium. He notes, “From a media planning perspective, what we see is a tendency for decisions to be taken at a national level, which may ignore nuances and preferences specific to each state. For example, while data shows that the circulation of dailies across most languages in India has dropped, the drop in Kerala has been minimal. Print continues to be the largest and most preferred medium in Kerala.”

Manorama has taken some innovative strategies and campaigns for advertising onboarding for the upcoming Onam season.

“We have a very interesting campaign, where the largest retail businesses in Kerala speak on the strength and effectiveness of print in Kerala and how advertising on print has helped their growth journey,” says Chandy.

When asked what kind of ad spends he is expecting during the Onam season and which categories will see greater traction, Chandy replied, “We are very positive about this Onam season. Brands have already started spends and the others will be commencing in the coming few days. In terms of categories, the indicators are that consumer electronics, large format retail, auto – 2 & 4 wheelers, entertainment – cinema & OTT will be particularly active. Q1 was good. We saw that brand sales and ad spends were on a strong recovery path. Like most businesses, our objective is to reach 2019 levels. If we continue this trajectory, it is possible that we may achieve or will be very close to our numbers from 2019.”

About the future and the outlook and growth projections for this year, Chandy says that advertising spends will be good this year and there should be a strong growth over the numbers from last year. He further adds, “We hope to reach 2019 levels and grow on from there. For print, though there will be strong topline growth, the bottom line recovery will be much slower because: 

1. we are going through a period of very high newsprint costs
2. a weaker rupee has an additional impact on newsprint imports
3. generally higher inflation brought on by macro-economic factors.”

Minto Purshotam Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, Deccan Healthcare

“Celebrations in India are incomplete without the splurging involved, be it on food, clothes, decor or outings – and this now includes a spend on self-care nutrition and wellness,” notes Dr Minto Purshotam Gupta, Chairman and Managing Director, Deccan Healthcare Ltd.

Consumer shift

Nitin Kamat, Chief Marketing Officer, TAM

Nitin Kamat, Chief Marketing Officer, TAM, while delivering his keynote address on festive advertising analysis at Adgully’s recently held CMOs’ Charcha in Bangalore, observed that there is a shift in terms of how consumers are consuming media, which has further led to a lot of changes in the last two years.

“Onam index in 2021 had vastly grown from 2019, with TV growing at 17%, print by 40%, radio by 24% and digital by 23%. Even with those strict COVID restrictions there was some or other growth that took place in all sectors and the festive season was celebrated well. This year after two years is the time where there will be no restrictions and we will be able to celebrate it properly,” Kamat said.

From August 12th to 23rd, 2021, he added, advertising grew with TV a 32%, radio at 44%, print at 47% and digital at 54% during the festive times of Onam. The festival itself ranked 6th from the most celebrated festival in India with Diwali sitting at first. Not just festivals, even IPL was played during the COVID times. If we consider specifically IPL-related advertisements, they majorly took place near and around festivals, but there was not much growth during IPL. There is definitely a lot of potential in increasing advertisement spending in this particular period. Ultimately the consumers are waiting for this particular season for consumption.

Comparing the ad spends in the South to the overall national spending, Kamat noted, “In 2021, the estimated ad spends that we saw was around 20 to 350 crores and this year, we are working on 26 to 731 crores. The growth rate average is around 18% and digital contributed around 50%, TV showed a growth of around 8.5%, print by 3% and radio with 22%. Adding to this, cinema and outdoor gave in 10%.”