From Dussehra to Diwali: India’s ad budgets get a CTV-era reset

India’s advertising calendar has traditionally revolved around Diwali, with Dussehra acting as a smaller lead-in. But this year, the landscape looks noticeably different: Advertisers are beginning to treat them as twin peaks.

Indeed, the big story is not just that festive ad spends are up again, but where the money is flowing. Festive advertising in India is increasingly no longer about a single big bang.

Dussehra, which celebrates the triumph of good over evil, marks a period of renewal and optimism — a natural moment for early brand storytelling before Diwali’s high-intent shopping rush.

Absent are the high-decibel TV campaigns and full-page print ads that dominated the season as recently as last year. For most brands, the new question is how to break those budgets into phases while calibrating emerging channels alongside traditional mainstays like television and print.

Shradha Agarwal, co-founder and global CEO of Grapes Worldwide, sees this shift in sharper allocations. “Marketing budgets for this year’s festive season are being divided more thoughtfully between major platforms and the broader internet. We’re seeing a notable increase in spending on programmatic, CTV (connected TV) and affiliate marketing across the open internet,” she says.

“Brands are doing this to broaden their audience and avoid depending too much on just one platform,” she adds.

The numbers bear this out. An estimated 15% to 18% surge in digital spend is being distributed in increasingly nuanced ways, with CTV spend up from 4% to 5% of last year’s digital budgets to 6% to 8% this year , even as linear television and YouTube still figure prominently in media plans.

The timing matters, too, says Agarwal. “For brands, Dussehra is increasingly a pre-Diwali phase. They use this time to build excitement and get people into a festive mood by focusing on wider reach and brand recognition through channels like programmatic and connected TV. In contrast, Diwali is when the focus shifts to sales, with a greater emphasis on performance marketing and affiliate networks to drive conversions.”

Digging into the data

Consumers see the nine-day lead-up to Dussehra as an auspicious time to make big-ticket purchases, as the festival celebrates beginnings, prosperity and the triumph of good. Diwali, the “festival of lights,” begins 20 days later. It is the country’s biggest holiday, centered around family gatherings, gifting and high consumer spending.

According to TAM Media leadership, an additional ₹5,400 crore ($612 million) will be spent on media during the festive cycle, taking total festive ad spend close to ₹55,000 to ₹60,000 crore ($6.24 billion to $6.80 billion).

Digital is driving that growth, with festive digital ad spend projected to surge by 25% over last year and expected to corner over half of media budget allocations, up from about 45% last year, according to reports. This growth will be led largely by FMCG and e-commerce, according to Hansa Research.

This macro shift is being driven by the way shopping journeys increasingly begin online, well before Diwali. Within digital, categories like CTV and influencer collaborations are growing fastest, while agency heads and media planners who spoke to The Current say affiliate networks are forecast to take another 15% to 20% share of the digital ad spend for this festive cycle.

Calibrating media spend across the festive calendar

For high-value categories like auto, this duality of brand and performance is critical. Shubhranshu Singh, a marketing leader who most recently served as CMO for Tata Motors Commercial Vehicles and Royal Enfield, argues that programmatic is not relegated to direct response; it is essential to brand storytelling. “In high-value categories like auto, programmatic is no longer the opposite of brand — it’s the amplifier that turns festive reach into measurable intent.”

He adds: “The festive window in India is long and sustained. It is about creating desire and urgency. However, given the deluge, it is also a period where efficiency gets stress-tested. Programmatic allows precision in audience definition, sequential storytelling and sharper ROI attribution. In categories where the purchase cycle is long and considered, this is crucial.”

Singh also points out that salience remains nonnegotiable. “The right balance is a dual approach with high-impact topical brand storytelling … to create aspiration, combined with programmatic performance layers on the open internet to capture intent, retarget, and drive showroom or website traffic.”

That sense of balance runs through this season’s media planning, according to Brijen Desai, associate vice president at White Rivers Media, who expects festive ad spend to rise 10% to 15% among the agency’s clients: “This Diwali, we anticipate spending across walled gardens to stay dominant at roughly two-thirds of budgets. But this year, the open internet is stepping up: programmatic, CTV and affiliate networks are poised to capture nearly a third of festive [budget] allocations, driven by rising measurability and viewer quality outside closed platforms.”