The CMO is busy devouring all the festive trends, meticulously crafting festive calendars, taking note of key moments, keeping up with the ever-changing dynamic of Indian shopper behaviour. The CEO walked into brainstorming at this opportune moment.
The CMO had unearthed something fascinating and was excited to conduct the knowledge transfer. Over 48 per cent of the population of India is female today. Yes, I am aware, nodded the CEO impatiently
The CMO continued in gusto, oblivious! More than 75 per cent of women between the age bracket of 25 to 44 years are contributing to the workforce. The CEO’s shoulders relaxed, he put down his double shot of expresso and leaned in to listen intently.
This is an upward trend, targeting the upwardly mobile, upwardly driven and upwardly aware. These are no mere mortals, working, these are Gen Zs and Millennials – aware, authentic and astute. These are folks who 'exist' to 'change the world', literally. They are highly socially, environmentally and mentally cautious and conscious. If Freud’s ID could speak – this is that and more.
This lot is going back to move forward. They are embracing history, culture, lineages and literally 'borrowing something old' to create a marriage of the present. These trends are rampantly visible in the charming recesses of fashion, jewellery, beauty, food & beverages.
Origin stories matter – organic, vegan, age-old family recipes, secret sauces, traditionally crafted, preserved over generations, purity, untouched by hand, farm to table, fresh, handmade, old is gold – a literal subtext of the subliminal creations launched by beautifully intended entrepreneurs, specifically female entrepreneurs, a tribe into itself – educated, evolved, exotic almost. They are equivocal in the preservation of the sacred feminine aesthetic drawn in the sands of time.
Now, imagine India as a grand bazaar, a souk or an agora, if you may where the sellers are women and the buyers are women. The interconnectedness of the rise of the female entrepreneur and the ascent of the working women, specifically in the younger demographic (25-44 years old), draws a pretty picture for the world of fashion, jewellery, beauty, food & beverages.
The CEO is intrigued. The CMO, the master storyteller orated with passionate fervour. Let’s look at spends, the Hotstar-Disney report states that the augmented loosening of the purse strings during Festive Season is led by the feminine. Think about it, they are right. The dots are connecting - her increased participation in the hallowed masculine walls of corporate, her rise in income, her advancement in contemplation, her intensified desire to touch her roots to design and possess have led to a climatic windfall in festive Spends.
A parenthesis in all of this is the subtle influence of OTT, masterminded by Bollywood. Karan Johar, the king of wedding shenanigans has now played his hand at festive as well. Karwa Chauth has never been bigger than it was this year! South India learnt about a purist North festival. It put glocalisation to shame, this was geo-regional-pan-Indianisation at its highest.
It played out like an operatic, theatric orchestra that had been born to perform! The consumer increase in spends on this said festival alone was almost 50 per cent, that’s 2x the rise in festive spends overall. The Bollywood wives traversed to the landlocked terrain of Delhi Heights and showed India, nay educated India on the largesse of love and sacrifice between a man and his woman. Remember, it may feel rather anti-Gen Z, but it was not – it was Romeo and Juliet, it was stuff that pure poetry is made of – it was going back to the roots, to traditions and contemporarising it – it was Gen Zisque at its finest!
And so, brands hopped onto this wagon, peddled their wares on ecommerce – Myntra, Amazon, even Swiggy Instamart had carefully curated sections armed with all the paraphernalia one needed to celebrate right and that’s a very current festive trend as well.
Swiggy did this fabulously during Dusshera as well, though the principal protagonist this time was another Bollywood star, actress Rani Mukherjee. Her Bollywood pandal and the daily updates on Instagram and YouTube literally took Pujo out of Bengal and exquisitely subverted it across the nation. India consumed the festival with awe, the presence of the divas of the big screen live daily in their festive finery served as an anthem to celebrate the festival of the Goddess mindfully and prayerfully like our ancestors did. In line with women leading festive spends, in sync with the need to adhere to traditions, in harmony with the desire to emulate the largest influencers of India – Bollywood, the utime A-List, in congruence with the curricula a la mode – you got that right – jewellery, fashion, beauty and food. Perfecto Bellissima.
This nuanced shift in the performance of the festive narrative has been a slow burn, a long con if you will. India has witnessed three great feminine movements – mid 19th century, where the reformists started speaking of women's rights, during the mid-20th century when they participated in the Quit India movement and later with equal rights in all matters pertaining to home and outside its walls and since then, women in India have been steadily leading societally, culturally, politically, financially, economically through the confines of their homes, into the factories, across retail stores, onto ecommerce, leveraging technology to its hilt to showcase visually – recipes, ingredients, fragrances, flavours, textures, looks, taste buds, skin feel, couture, falls, drapes, weaves and cuts.
The umbilical cord of India is 'festivals'.
India takes its essence very sanctimoniously in every sense. With women at the helm of it, in my humble opinion, it’s probably the 4th feminine movement in India as it’s touching hearts (prayer), adorning the ears, the neck, the wrists (jewellery), glowing up the face, the eyes, the lips, the hair (beauty), draping the form, the feet, the arm (fashion) and nourishing the soul via the passage of the lips (food & beverages).
Literally and figuratively, festive marketing’s trendiest trend that’s here to stay, for women, by women, of women. (Thank you Constitution). The CEO was inspired and gave the CMO a thundering applause.
To quote Sia 'Unstoppable Today, I’m unstoppable today, I’m so powerful, I’m so confident, Yeah, I’m unstoppable today!'
