The indie festive push: Why big brands are betting on smaller agencies

The festive window is the one stretch of the calendar when adex, ambition and anxiety peak together. It accounts for roughly 30 to 40% of annual ad spends for most advertisers. For years, the big festive mandate, the pan-India tentpole film and the heavyweight AOR relationship sat comfortably with large network agencies that had the headcount to match. This season, that assumption is being tested.

India's total advertising expenditure is projected to touch ₹1,74,605 crore in 2026, up 12 to 13% from ₹1,55,105 crore in 2025, according to the Pitch Madison Advertising Report 2026. Digital's share of that pie is expected to climb to 46% from 42%. A bigger and more digital pie means more brands talking at the same time, and the usual playbook of scale and spend is no longer enough to be heard.

The work already out in the market tells its own story. Flipkart's Big Billion Days push, anchored on the 'Luck Badal Sakta Hai, Yahan Kuch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai' proposition, has taken to Kolkata's streets with 'Board The Bus To BBD Bagh', created by independent creative agency Talented. The idea borrows the city's most familiar association with the initials BBD, the bus stop at BBD Bagh (formerly Dalhousie Square), and puts Big Billion Days offers and QR codes on the tickets of buses that run through it. Talented is also behind super.money's splitStore film with Tiger Shroff, where the actor takes the word 'split' a little too literally. super.money is the UPI app from the Flipkart Group.

Over at Amazon, the Great Indian Festival push has WLDD, a culture-led media tech company, turning The Great Khali's name into a humour-led, social-first home upgrade story.


Even outside the sale-season lane, Rungta Steel TMT Bars has creative agency The Script Room putting Shah Rukh Khan, Ranbir Kapoor and Alia Bhatt in a mock writers' room, pitching ideas from ‘Don’, ‘Rockstar’ and ‘Jigra’.


Individually, these are campaign wins. Together, they raise a bigger question: Are marketers now picking agencies on the strength of the idea rather than the size of the roster?

Arihant Jain, CEO, WLDD, says brands have stopped caring about the letterhead. "To be honest, brands don’t care whether the work is done by a large network agency or an independent one. They care if the idea is good, but more importantly if people will care about it."

When scale stops being the safe choice
For a long time, the size of the agency was treated as a proxy for safety. A big network meant bandwidth, reach and a roster of specialists under one roof, and few marketing heads were questioned for choosing it. What counts as scale, however, is being redefined. Jain argues that the old yardstick no longer holds. "Speaking of scale. It’s no longer about headcounts or multiple offices. Today, creators, technology, distribution and cultural intelligence can create enormous scale in very different ways."

Part of the shift has to do with what has happened to the big agencies themselves. As iconic shops were folded into network-led structures, clients began looking for partners that felt lighter on their feet. Ashish Chakravarty, Managing Partner & Chief Creative Officer, Garage Worldwide, an independent creative agency, sees that consolidation as the starting point. "One of the biggest reasons behind the rise of independent agencies is the consolidation of large, iconic agencies into network-led organizations. As that has happened, many clients have started looking for alternatives that feel more agile and creatively driven."

The creator economy has widened the funnel even further. With young creators putting out sharp writing and content outside any agency structure, clients no longer assume that a great idea must come from a big building. Chakravarty says that has changed the way marketers think about sourcing. "Creativity is no longer confined to agencies or companies. There's an entire generation that's creating fearlessly, and that's changing how clients think about where great ideas can come from."

That has had a direct effect on how agencies are evaluated. Vishakha Khattri, Business Head, Goodness of Design and Digital, a creative and digital agency, says the question asked at the briefing table has become far simpler. "Earlier, the size of the agency, its network and its resources carried a lot of weight. Today, increasingly, the question is much simpler: Who has the idea that is going to get my consumer's attention?"

The change is visible from the production floor too. Anupama Ahluwalia, Co-Founder and Producer, Zig Zag Films, a production house that works with both independent and network agencies, says her team has watched the mix of briefs change. "We are seeing more mainline advertising briefs coming from independent agencies, including work for established brands. That suggests clients are open to a wider range of creative partners. The idea, the people behind it and their ability to deliver seem to matter as much as the agency’s scale. Different teams bring different strengths, and the choice ultimately depends on what the brand and brief need."

Cutting through the festive noise
If the festive brief is the toughest test of the year, it is because the category is a sea of sameness. Family, gifting, discounts and new launches are recycled by almost every advertiser, and most festive films would fail the logo swap test. Jain says that is precisely why the stakes are higher. "Festive season only raises the stakes. Everyone is advertising, everyone is shouting, and quite often, everyone is saying the same thing. The job isn’t to add to the noise. It’s to earn attention despite it."

Khattri echoes the point and says that spending more is not a strategy by itself. "And festive is perhaps the toughest time to answer that question. Every brand is speaking at the same time, around similar occasions and often using very similar cultural cues. You don't win by simply making a bigger festive campaign. You win by finding something culturally relevant, topical and distinctive enough for people to actually notice."

Independents believe their edge lies in cultural proximity, which is not what many would assume. Jain says speed and senior involvement are baseline expectations now. "Speed and senior involvement are hygiene. The real advantage is cultural proximity."

The Kolkata activation is a good illustration of what that means in practice. The idea works only because it comes from someone who knows what a conductor's cry of 'BBD' means to the city, and that kind of local specificity is hard to brief down from a head office.

Deepshikha Bhardwaj, National Lead, Media Strategy & Partnerships, Schbang, a homegrown creative and digital agency, says that is one of the biggest reasons independents keep growing. "Another key advantage is that Indian independent agencies understand the market far better, especially when it comes to regional nuances. Whether it's a print campaign or a BTL activation, a local agency often has a much stronger grasp of the audience, culture, and market dynamics than someone operating from Mumbai, Delhi, or even New York. That's one of the biggest reasons why Indian independent agencies continue to grow."

Cultural proximity also means resisting the festive clichés that clients are tired of seeing. Jain is blunt about how little room there is for repetition. "Most festive advertising is some combination of family, celebration, gifting, discounts and new products. There are only so many diyas you can light differently."

Speed, senior eyeballs and a certain hunger
The second argument for independents is structural. Many are founded by people who spent years building brands inside large networks, so a smaller agency does not necessarily mean a lighter bench. Khattri says that is where the festive advantage comes from. "One reason is that many independent agencies today have been started by people who have spent years building brands at large network agencies. So while the agency may be smaller in size, the experience sitting at the table isn't necessarily smaller."

The mix of senior hands and young talent matters even more in the festive window, when a big brand needs both experience and freshness. "You also tend to have a very interesting combination: senior people who have spent years working on large brands sitting very close to young creative talent that understands what is culturally relevant right now. That mix can be incredibly powerful during the festive season because you need both experience to understand the responsibility of a large brand and fresh thinking to stop it from sounding like every other festive campaign," Khattri adds.

Then comes the matter of turnaround. Festive timelines are brutal, and every extra layer of approval eats into the window between the idea and the launch. Ahluwalia says leaner structures can help, though she is careful not to overstate it. "Agility can be an advantage for independent agencies. With smaller teams and fewer decision-making layers, discussions and approvals can sometimes move faster. During the festive season, when timelines are tight, that can help maintain momentum from the idea through to production."

Bhardwaj says the larger difference is how clients feel inside the relationship, which is where the working model of a big holding company can pinch. "At large holding companies, agencies handle so many brands that clients can sometimes feel like just another account. Independent agencies, on the other hand, work much more closely with clients, offering one-on-one attention and a deeper understanding of their business."

Then there is appetite. When every brief is a big brief for a smaller agency, the energy shows up in the work, and Khattri says independents are also more willing to take risks. "I think independents come into these briefs with a certain hunger. There is a go-getter energy because every big brief matters to the agency, and that reflects in the work."

What independents are increasingly selling, then, is an idea that can travel beyond the ad. The Khali film is a case in point. It is a simple comic premise on a familiar celebrity persona, made social-first so that the shopping message becomes part of the entertainment. Jain calls the thinking behind this *attention infrastructure*. "That’s why *attention infrastructure* will inevitably become part of the modern marketing playbook. Brands will need partners that can create the idea, understand culture, activate communities and creators, and distribute it at scale. That’s the ecosystem we’re building at WLDD."

He says it starts with how the idea is judged once it leaves the edit suite. "The work that breaks through has a point of view and gives people something worth talking about. If the idea can leave the ad and enter a dinner-table conversation, you’ve probably done something right."

A festive blip or a lasting shift?
Before anyone calls it a changing of the guard, it is worth noting what is actually changing. Most of these campaigns are project-based wins rather than wholesale shifts of retainers, and the agency of record is often left untouched. Chakravarty says clients have become far more flexible about where they source ideas. "We've seen established clients, many through long-standing relationships, start giving independent agencies projects. It's an exciting journey. More importantly, clients today are far more open to sourcing ideas from different places. Even if they have an agency of record, they're increasingly willing to work with specialist or boutique agencies for specific assignments."

He points to Coca-Cola as an early example of the mindset. "Take Coca-Cola, for example. Years ago, it created a Creative Excellence function within the company, staffed by some of the industry's best creative leaders. They would identify talent and commission work irrespective of the agency on record. That mindset is becoming more common."

Chakravarty adds that clients have also realised how much talent sits outside the big networks. "Brands know there are excellent creatives, planners, direct marketing specialists and social experts working outside the large networks, and they're happy to tap into that talent for individual projects, even if they don't move the entire business."

The momentum is real, but it comes with its own pressure. Independents are working from a scale disadvantage and have to keep proving themselves on every brief. "Of course, running an independent agency isn't all rosy — it comes with its own challenges — but there's definitely a tailwind behind the sector," he says, and then offers the line that sums up the mood. "I hope this momentum continues because, as an independent agency, you can't afford to stand still. You're naturally at a scale disadvantage, so you have to work harder and consistently prove why clients should choose you. In many ways, it's like the old Avis line: 'We're No. 2. We try harder.' That's the mindset independent agencies need to have."

Whether this is a festive-season phenomenon or a longer-term repricing of agency choice divides opinion. Khattri believes the budget environment is what makes this stick. "Budgets are also under far greater scrutiny today. Clients want more agility and more value from every rupee they spend. Independent agencies are fitting very naturally into that change, and I think this is part of a much larger shift happening in advertising rather than just a festive-season phenomenon."

She also sees a lesson for the independents themselves. "That's where I think independent agencies have an opportunity not to behave like smaller versions of network agencies, but to use their size to be faster, braver, and closer to culture."

Jain and Ahluwalia are more cautious about framing this as a contest at all. Jain says the real shift is in how partners are chosen. "So the shift isn’t really from networks to independents. Brands are simply choosing partners who they believe can earn and compound attention." And Ahluwalia, who sees both sides of the table every day, says the structure of the agency has far less to do with the outcome than the discipline of the process. "But these qualities aren’t exclusive to independents. We work with network agency teams that are equally hands-on and responsive. From our perspective, what makes the difference is a clear idea, close collaboration and timely decisions. When the client, agency and production team work well together, it gives the film its best chance, regardless of the agency’s structure."

The debate may well end where Jain's own argument does. For him, the real question is not about size at all. "Brands don’t need smaller agencies. They need partners who understand how attention works today. Sometimes those happen to be independent."

Whether this hardens into a structural rethink of agency selection will only be clear beyond Diwali, once pitch lists and AOR reviews show where the money actually goes. For now, the festive scoreboard suggests the idea is becoming the real currency, and agencies of every size will be judged by the same yardstick: does anyone talk about the work after the sale ends?