Trust emerges key as brands decode festive marketing at e4m x Truecaller Ads roundtable

The festive season in India isn't just another marketing window. It's the Super Bowl, the World Cup, and the Oscars of consumer engagement rolled into one chaotic, colourful celebration. But as ad spends peak and brand narratives multiply across touchpoints, a critical question emerges: how do you make consumers stop, trust, and convert?

That was the focus of The Great Indian Festive Bazaar, a roundtable conference hosted by exchange4Media and Truecaller Ads on 24th September. With Samkukta Ganesh Iyer, CEO and Founder at The Simple Thing, taking the session chair and Vanita Rathode, Senior Director - Global Ad Sales at Truecaller, co-chairing the proceedings, the event brought together marketing heavyweights from diverse sectors to unpack the anatomy of festive communication.

The trust imperative in a cluttered landscape
India's festive corridor, spanning Dussehra, Navratri, Diwali, Eid, Christmas and New Year, represents the year's most concentrated consumer moment. It's when wallets open, aspirations peak, and brand stories battle for mindshare. But winning attention has become table stakes. The real currency, as the roundtable emphasised, is trust.

The conversation brought together brand and marketing expert Almas Khan, alongside senior marketing leaders including Aishwarya Gupta, Deputy Vice President - Brand Marketing at Angel One, Gagandeep Marwah, Deputy General Manager at Crompton, and Harshita Hemnani, Deputy Vice President at Bharti AXA Life Insurance. The roster also featured Jahan Vandrevala, Head of Creative, Content Channels at Pfizer, Jiteen Agarwal, Chief Marketing Officer at Hettich, and Nisha Pikle, Senior Vice President - Brands at Nykaa Fashion.

From financial services to consumer durables, from fashion to healthcare, the brands represented cut across categories. Yet the challenge remained singular: how do you build authentic connections when consumers are bombarded with options and overwhelmed by choice?

From communication to conversion
The roundtable explored the delicate balance between brand storytelling and performance marketing during the festive surge. With Rajshree Bakshi, Senior Vice President - Marketing at Reliance Industries Limited, Pooja Menon, Joint Vice President (Head - Marketing) at Aditya Birla Capital Health Insurance, and Rupa Murudkar, Vice President - Marketing at Cholayil in attendance, the conversation touched on how traditional brand narratives need to evolve to inspire immediate action.

Sawan Acharya, Senior Media Manager at Piramal Consumer Healthcare, Sharmila Sandeep, General Manager - Marketing at CG Power and Industrial Solutions, and Shetanshu Dikshit, Lead Digital Communications at Pernod Ricard, brought perspectives from sectors where festive timing can make or break annual targets. Rounding out the speaker lineup was Varun Mundra, Senior Vice President, Head - Group Media and Innovations at Motilal Oswal, whose financial services lens added another dimension to the trust conversation.

The first section involved the speakers sharing what festive marketing means to them in 2025, along with a tagline that was like a headline to their own festive campaign. Sharp taglines like “Money creates money” by Mundra, “Shagun ke shares” by Aishwarya, and “Winning hearts by winning cards” by Murudkar kicked off the discussion with a quick introduction about each other’s point of view.

Speaking the consumer's language
The roundtable underscored a fundamental shift in festive marketing. Consumers today expect brands to do more than sell. They want authentic experiences that resonate with their cultural moment. Whether it's a first-time investor exploring equity during Muhurat Trading or a family upgrading their home appliances before Diwali, the context matters as much as the creative.

This is where platforms like Truecaller become pivotal. The communications platform sits at the intersection of real consumer behaviour with billions of calls and messages exchanged during the festive period, when purchase intent and engagement are naturally elevated. For brands, this represents an opportunity to reach audiences in moments of genuine attention, not forced interruption.

As festive calendars get more crowded and consumer expectations evolve, the brands that will win aren't just those with the biggest budgets or the loudest campaigns. They're the ones who understand the difference between talking to consumers and conversing with them. The ones that build trust before asking for transactions. The ones that recognise festive marketing isn't about capturing attention – it's about earning it.