Onam 2026: Media agencies reveal the FOMO fuelling Kerala’s festive ad boom

Scroll through Instagram, and the pattern is hard to miss! Every second brand seems to have an Onam film, a Malayalam-first post, a festive offer, a creator collab or some pookalam-coded visual. If nothing else, you will spot an AI-generated image casually sneaking into the feed!

Relevance? We will get to that.

But the immediate takeaway is simpler, everyone seems to be doing Onam. And it is not just Kerala-first brands. This year auto, BFSI, consumer durables, appliances, FMCG, food, e-commerce, quick commerce and even categories that would traditionally wait for the larger national festive calendar showed up! Media agencies say Onam made a national-sized splash this year. And the reason goes beyond the festival’s growing visibility or its traction on Instagram.

Read On: ₹25,000 cr flows through Kerala in just 15 days of Onam: Varghese Chandy

As Atrayee Chakraborty, SVP - Strategy, Mudra, puts it, “Onam is increasingly becoming the opening bell of the festive season, particularly for national brands, not just a Kerala burst, but the start of momentum into the larger festive quarter.”

Onam no longer just Kerala’s festive window

For years, Onam was an obvious commercial moment for Kerala-centric categories and brands. But agencies are seeing a broader set of advertisers now treating it as the first serious opportunity to get into the festive market. Ajay Varghese, Managing Partner & Head of Investment, Omnicom Media India, called Onam “the beginning of the Great Indian festive carnival”, adding that the agency typically sees a 15–20% uplift in seasonal budgets for Kerala during Onam.

“The sustained investment is a clear indicator that brands continue to see meaningful value in the occasion and the consumer opportunity it presents,” he said.

At Laqshya Media Group, Yuvrraj Agarwaal, Chief Strategy Officer, sees the change not merely in the size of the spend, but in the way the festival is entering the brief.

The briefs, according to Agarwaal, are arriving earlier and with a much clearer understanding of what makes Onam different. “Clients now understand that you cannot dub a national film into Malayalam and call it a campaign, and the briefs reflect that. What we are being asked for is Malayalam-first, Kerala-rooted work built around the actual grammar of the festival: the homecoming, the pookalam, the sadya, the Gulf diaspora returning with money and intent.”

That distinction matters because the opportunity is no longer being framed only around reaching Malayali consumers. It is increasingly about understanding why they are spending, where they are spending and what cultural moment the brand is entering. Mudra's Chakraborty sees the same shift. “We are seeing 3 clear asks: start earlier, localise deeper and get closer to purchase.”

“Brands want Malayalam-first communication rather than adapted national creative, sharper targeting within Kerala, and a stronger connection between brand media and eventual commerce.”

Increasingly, that also means moving beyond Kerala as one homogeneous audience. As Chakraborty puts it, the planning question is no longer simply “How do we win Kerala?” but “Which Kerala are we speaking to, and at what moment to drive commerce?”

The national brands have entered the room

The regional brands still dominate the traditional Onam landscape. Jewellery, textiles, electronics, appliances and local retail remain deeply tied to the festival. But agencies say the more interesting story this year is the participation of national brands.

Agarwaal puts it bluntly: “The base has always been regional, and it is still the largest volume. But the national participation is the real story this year.” He pointed to consumer durables and white goods, smartphones, automobiles, FMCG, BFSI, fintech and healthcare as categories committing to Kerala early.

Mudra is seeing a similar widening of the advertiser base. “Beyond the traditional Onam-heavy categories, we are seeing increased activity from consumer durables, e-commerce, food and FMCG. More importantly, participation is widening to the national brands that aren't necessarily Kerala-first businesses,” said Chakraborty.

Omnicom Media India, meanwhile, is seeing auto and BFSI among the more prominent Onam-centric categories, alongside food and appliances.

“Auto and BFSI are among the categories with more Onam-centric campaigns across our roster. Interestingly, the demand is not limited to regional players, we are seeing participation from national brands that have a strong strategic interest in the Kerala market,” said Varghese.

For national advertisers, there is another reason to enter now. Onam arrives before the larger cluster of Ganesh Chaturthi, Navratri, Durga Puja and Diwali, giving marketers an earlier consumer signal.

Agarwaal describes it as “the earliest real-world read on consumer sentiment before Ganesh Chaturthi, Navratri, Durga Puja and Diwali.” More importantly, he sees Onam as the first clean read on whether consumers have genuinely turned the corner before the larger Diwali budgets are locked.

In that sense, Onam is doing more than opening the festive calendar. “The same rupee is doing two jobs: winning Kerala, and pressure-testing the national plan,” Agarwaal said.

Read On: Onam grows beyond Kerala: Can a regional festival become India’s next big consumer moment?

Where the Onam rupee is moving

If the advertiser base is changing, the media plan is changing with it. But agencies are not describing this as a straightforward migration from traditional media to digital.

Mudra's Chakraborty is explicit: “The shift isn't traditional to digital. It is Reach + Precision + Commerce.”

Digital is growing fastest, particularly CTV/OTT, creators, social and performance media linked to festive commerce. Malayalam content environments on JioHotstar and ZEE5 are seeing advertiser interest, while creators are being used to build cultural relevance.

At the same time, “linear TV remains an important mass-reach layer, and OOH continues to be powerful during Onam,” she said.

Omnicom's Varghese also sees print and OOH continuing to play a central role. “For Onam, Print and OOH continue to be key channels, particularly for brand and market announcements, while TV sees selective investment through impact opportunities like Onam premieres.”

The agency is also looking beyond conventional media, including an auto activation around the Nehru Trophy Boat Race, which takes place just before Thiruvonam. Agarwaal describes the broader change as integration rather than a winner-takes-all media battle.

“Print is the fortress, and in Kerala that is close to literal,” he said, pointing to Kerala's strong newspaper market and the continued role of print in festive retail, offers, store launches and market announcements.

Read On: Who's winning the Onam 2026 media mix: TV, print or radio?

At the same time, he said, “Outdoor is in genuine growth,” while “Digital and CTV are taking the largest share of the incremental rupee.”

The pressure on premium outdoor inventory is also becoming a marker of the intensity of demand. According to Agarwaal, with the onset of Onam, “there is effectively no premium outdoor site left in the state; it is sold out.”

Read On: This Onam, Kerala OOH ad spend expected to grow 20%

His summary is telling: “The clear year-on-year shift: away from buying channels in silos, toward one integrated campaign across print, TV, outdoor and digital and, within that, outdoor gaining share while digital takes the incremental rupee.”

The BARC blackout puts TV under pressure

There is, however, one wrinkle running through the Onam media story, television measurement.

With weekly ratings suspended amid the BARC ratings blackout, advertisers are entering one of biggest television periods without the usual live currency for planning and pricing. Agarwaal says the result is not a wholesale flight from TV. “Advertisers are not walking away from TV, in Kerala especially, Malayalam television is too central to reach and trust to abandon, and Onam is a habitual, high-affinity TV moment.”

But the uncertainty is changing negotiations. “What they are doing is leaning on last year's benchmarks and historical performance, negotiating harder on rate, and pushing for fixed-rate deals and bonus inventory to cover the uncertainty,” he said.

At Mudra, Chakraborty describes the behaviour as “more rebalancing than retreating.”

“Clients are asking harder questions on TV pricing and value in the absence of recent audience data, while incremental money is moving towards CTV, OTT, creators, social and performance. The objective isn't to replace TV, but to protect mass reach while buying greater precision and accountability elsewhere.”

In some plans, she said, the linear TV-to-digital video mix has moved from around 80:20 to 60:40. That makes the Onam media story less about television versus digital and more about what happens when advertisers cannot measure one medium with the same confidence.

As Agarwaal puts it: “It is a measurement story.”

“What gets measured gets funded. This Onam has been an unplanned, real-world demonstration of exactly that, the medium that lost its currency is the medium under pressure.”

So, why is everyone suddenly doing Onam?

The answer may ultimately be bigger than the media. Amol Mohandas, Founder & Principal Advisor, Weave Through, argued that the opportunity is expanding because brands are becoming more willing to monetise culturally relevant occasions.

“Onam has always been an important commercial occasion in Kerala. However, the size of the opportunity is changing, and the number of brands that are willing to participate too. As competition intensifies, advertisers are increasingly looking at every credible consumption occasion rather than waiting for the traditional national festive peaks.”

And he cautions against reducing the development simply to the festival arriving before Ganesh Chaturthi this year. “The fact that Onam precedes Ganesh Chaturthi this year certainly gives it greater prominence as the first major festive occasion. But I would not read that as brands systematically unlocking festive budgets earlier. The more fundamental trend is that the festive opportunity itself is expanding, with brands becoming more willing to monetise ‘culturally relevant occasions’ wherever they find a strong consumer or business opportunity.”

There are also signs that the shift is changing what brands say, not just where they spend. Agarwaal points to jewellery as one example. With gold prices at record levels, the category's Onam messaging is moving away from weight-led offers towards design, craftsmanship, lightweight jewellery and gifting.

That is a subtle shift, but it says something about how marketers are adapting the proposition to the moment rather than simply attaching an Onam discount to an existing campaign.

Onam kazhinju. Ini festive season! (Onam is over. Now, the festive season begins!)

Apparently, sitting out of Onam is no longer an option. Brands are not choosing it over Diwali, Durga Puja or Ganesh Chaturthi either. They are simply refusing to choose. That is perhaps the clearest explanation for the Instagram scroll. Onam has become another chance to enter culture, drive commerce and get an early read on the festive consumer.

And the work is changing with it. A Malayalam translation will no longer do. Brands are going Malayalam-first, leaning into local creators, homecoming, pookalam, sadya and the nostalgia that makes Onam culturally distinct.

Scroll long enough and Onam starts looking less like a regional festival and more like a national brand battleground. Who would have thought KFC's AI-generated Colonel Harland David Sanders would one day wear a mundu and celebrate Onam? Yet here we are!