Festive ad spend to grow 13–17% as brands approve AI systems

Datum Intelligence expects India’s festive 2026 advertising spend to reach ₹60,000–62,000 crore, up 13–17% year on year and 34–35% of the full-year advertising market. Commerce advertising is projected to grow 27%, more than twice the overall rate.

Behind those numbers is a deeper change. Festive campaigns must now adapt across languages, cities, audiences, offers and screens. As AI accelerates that multiplication, brands are shifting from approving every ad to approving the systems that create them.

01 · The festive consumer is doing more homework

Google finds nine in ten Navratri and Diwali shoppers who made a purchase researched beforehand, averaging 8.3 searches and 7.7 online videos. Users of generative-AI chatbots interacted with them 7.5 times on average; 51% said AI helped them decide and 38% said it shortened decision time. InMobi adds that 77% of consumers have raised festive budgets and four in five want AI-powered shopping assistants. IAS puts mobile as the primary shopping device for 83%, with 38% planning to use AI for product and gift research, up from 32%.

So there is simply more to chase—and more variants to produce, target and check.

02 · Why approval is becoming a system problem

AI can generate the 50th or 100th variation faster than human teams can meaningfully inspect it. When one campaign can become dozens of language, city, format and offer combinations while it is live, the question changes: what exactly does the brand approve?

At Shapoorji Pallonji Real Estate, CMO Rima Kirtikar says teams sign off on the master creative, template architecture and a defined rulebook. Elements such as RERA registration numbers, QR codes, project names, approved imagery and legal disclaimers remain locked, while copy length, language, format and local context can flex within limits. Her shorthand: ‘approve the system, audit the output.’ Legal and compliance teams concentrate on high-risk assets such as new claims, offers and anything outside the template.

Airpay follows a two-layer model, says Shreyas Deshmukh, AVP, Marketing (B2C). The master creative and its rulebook get the most rigorous approval; core messages, product claims and disclaimers stay fixed, while language, format, visuals and tone can vary. An adaptation that changes a locked element returns to full review. ‘A tool can flag that a line has changed, but assessing whether that change could mislead someone about their money remains a human responsibility,’ Deshmukh says.

03 · Move checks upstream

Flipick’s Ravi Dugal points to disconnected tools as the hidden risk. In one retail campaign, 12 versions were produced across English, Hindi and Marathi and four sizes. Automated audio checks found every English version failing across all four shots, with only 43% to 69% of the script making it into the audio; each Hindi version had one excessively rushed shot; the Marathi versions passed.

Dugal argues that moving prompts, scripts, storyboards, assets, translations, voice-overs and rendering into one pipeline allows checks before and after rendering. Kavir Advani of NorthSight suggests defining approved claims, offers, tone and regional requirements before the first variation exists. Samir Asher of Tonic Worldwide says branding, key assets, translations, offers, disclaimers and platform crops still need human scrutiny.

• Lock: RERA numbers, QR codes, registered claims, legal disclaimers, project names and approved imagery.
• Automate: script-to-audio match, shot pacing, language pass/fail, missing crops and format errors.
• Keep human: pricing claims, city-specific offers, translation meaning, cultural tone and anything that feels off in context.

At J7, Venkat Mallik suggests prompting a checklist into the AI campaign before assets are generated, or constraining the system to a particular creative style. But Sailesh Grover of OSL Luxury Collections notes rule compliance and contextual correctness are not the same. ‘An asset can follow all the basic guidelines and still not work in the context where it is being used,’ he says. ‘So there needs to be some human review before anything goes live.’

Source: Indian Advertising Media & Marketing News – exchange4media

Mad About Marketing Desk The strategists and writers at Mad About Marketing, writing up what we see in the work every week.