Content marketing trends to watch out for this festive season

Consumers are increasingly avoiding plain vanilla advertising unless it has a good narrative. Hence, more and more marketers have started taking the content route to reach out to consumers. Festivals and special occasions are the times when consumers are high on emotions and more open to engaging and sharing content among friends and family. They might not necessarily buy products after watching a brand’s content but might remember the brand for its content which is informative, entertaining and educative. 

In the first part of the story, BuzzInContent.com discussed why it's inevitable for brands to have a branded content strategy in place for the festive season and how content platforms and agencies are able to garner additional revenue during this period. The second part of the story will discuss the content marketing trends that will be popular this festive season. 

High on emotion

Aastha Beecham, Business Director – Rev Up, the branded content division of Puretech Digital, believes that while TVCs around Diwali and Christmas are very common, branded content around the festive period is generally high on emotions, the spirit of sharing and caring, and Indian culture.

Entertainment content is a must

Sheveeta Hegde

Sheveeta Hegde, Head of Monetisation, FilterCopy, a Pocket Aces channel, believes that the pandemic-induced lockdown has led to a rise in the consumption of entertainment content in the last two years. She said, “People are now spending more time streaming entertainment, spending more time on social media and listening to music streaming services and podcasts.” 

Ephemeral content should be balanced with in-depth permanent posts

Hegde also said that ephemeral content, which stays published for 24 hours before it disappears, was a hot trend for the past few years but now marketers are banking big time on permanent content instead because it generates better ROI. “Thus, always balance your ephemeral content messages with the more in-depth permanent articles/posts so that you never miss the trick,” she added. 

Personalisation will be key

Karthik Nagarajan

According to Karthik Nagarajan, Chief Content Officer, Wavemaker India, personalisation will be a key trend that brands would be gunning for especially after the demonstrated success of campaigns like Cadbury’s ‘not just a Cadbury ad’. “Technology interventions like AR can be a great way especially for FMCG brands to spread joy and create an element of fun during this period,” he added. 

Marriage of technology with storytelling

Dhruv Sachdeva

Dhruv Sachdeva, Co-Founder, Humour Me, commented, “I believe the integration of technology along with great storytelling will definitely be one of the factors that brands should jump onto this festive season”. 

Growth of audio content

He further said, “Brands should try to leverage audio searches in a unique way along with other content formats such as podcasts that allow for super targeted messaging. Audio is relatively untapped in this country. Brands that leverage this will surely stand a chance to win.” 

Long-form content that is part of pop culture

Sachdeva also emphasised on the growing usage of long-form content by brands and making most of the pop culture. “I don’t mean product placements, but looking beyond the regular. Masaba Gupta recently made the entire collection that was displayed in Netflix’s season 2 of her show 'Masaba Masaba' available on her website after learnings from the last season. That is the true definition of content marketing. If one can make their products/services have cultural equity and make that available to audiences, one is bound to win.”  

Evergreen informative and educational content

Not just long-format entertaining content that is part of pop culture would be trending, but even the evergreen long-form informative and educative videos are going to remain an important trend this festive season. 

Shankar Prasad

Shankar Prasad, CEO and Founder of Plum, explained, “The pandemic has resulted in some major changes in consumer behaviour. People now resort more to online sources to seek product information and reviews prior to purchase. This has led us to focus more on educational content for our audience. Quite against the assumption that long-form content is no longer preferred, we see long videos as a heavy preference for our target audience in terms of product suggestions and reviews, and hence we plan to create more content in this space for better engagement with them and to establish ourselves as their go-to source when it comes to beauty and personal care.”

Influencer marketing is an important pillar

Rahul Gandhi

Rahul Gandhi, CMO, iD Fresh Food, told BuzzInContent.com that influencer marketing would be one of the most important marketing pillars this festive season. He said, “We will continue to engage with influencers, amplify our presence in the media and run new innovative campaigns during the festive season.” 

Although, Plum’s Prasad also pointed out to the increase in usage of regional language influencers.  He said, “We would also be focusing on the vernacular or ‘Bharat’ influencer space. India being a country with multiple cultural identities, vernacular content also helps us target more personalised content towards relevant audiences, especially during festivities which are often regional in nature, such as ‘Pujo’ in the East and ‘Karva Chauth’ which is North-centric.”

Shruti Kapoor

Even Kapoor of Soothe Healthcare said that Paree Sanitary Pads is bidding big on influencer campaigns and vernacular content platforms, like ShareChat, with an aim to reach out to their audience in regional markets with festivities adding a layer of topicality to the content.

Don’t miss out on user-generated content

Prasad pointed out that in addition to this, other trends that he would be backing on in this festive season would be around gifting and UGC. He said, “People have started looking for more interactive content with a human element to engage with when it comes to brands. They now look for conversations and not just replies, which has also helped us understand them better and cater to their requirements more effectively.” 

Live commerce is the newbie in town

One very crucial content marketing trend Plum would be banking on is Live Commerce. Prasad said that new formats such as Live Shopping along with IG Lives in collaboration with marketplace partners have been scaling up rapidly.