Mumbai: India’s biggest festival season is here which means that it's time to share the moments and turn them into memories while unwrapping the presents as the festivities season is also the most awaited time in India when the entire nation comes and unites under one umbrella of traditions and rituals. These celebrations can be a great opportunity for the brand owners and marketers to tap into the potential consumers since acquisition, engagement, and retention of such an audience via storytelling campaigns can help make a difference in a brand's presence.

Brands often start prepping up a few weeks before the beginning of the festivities to avoid last-minute chaos or mess wherein, they also try and test different advertising practices to analyze and choose the best-performing ones with the hope that it would accelerate sales during festivities. Thus, brand owners can leverage storytelling campaigns, especially during the festival times to connect the right audience and the brands in the most effective way.

Here’s how they can shape up their Festive Tales while Connecting Through the Stories to Accelerate User Personalized Experience & ROI.

Diwali, Bhai Dooj etc. each festive affair has its own story and significance but what makes the brand stand out during such times is their “narrative campaigns depicting stories”. Storytelling revitalizes campaigns and supercharges sales and the major reason behind this is people’s emotions and sentiments; this is why, I believe that a powerful story can either make or break a campaign. In the ever-evolving AdTech landscape, brands strive to come up with new offerings and innovations to win the consumers and here are some effective solutions that can help you make a difference.

Storytelling: A Limitless Constant

Dhanteras, During festivities, storytelling helps create a buzz in the ecosystem in some or different ways to sustain the digital landscape. This is due to the festive fervour at online marketplaces which becomes an opportunity for brands to catch the moment via their impactful creatives depicting real-time and resonating stories.

Beth Comstock has said, "you can't sell anything if you can't tell anything” wherein, Context, Content & Time Mapping can better help brands edge their stories. For example, during Dhanteras and Diwali, emotions are more towards pooja and aarti of Goddess Lakshmi wherein, marketers can showcase the users with content such as “Diwali Fest”, “Dhanteras Gifts” which will pump their emotions towards pooja, rituals, traditional dance, food, ethnicity and other associated factors of the festivals.

This can also be done via AI as it would help match the Context of Dhanteras with the Content of Gifts at the specific Time when the users remain active on their devices and screens. This will also give marketers a fair understanding of users' choices and preferences and they can place the prominent creatives at the most engaging touch points throughout the device lifecycle. In fact, while targeting the audience interested in attending fests, they can also target the cohorts interested in ethnic wear during Diwali. In this way, brands can leverage contextual targeting as well wherein, storytelling coupled with Gifts’ content can accelerate sales in a different way.  

So, there would be nothing wrong with saying that storytelling allows you to tap into emotions by crafting narratives that resonate with your audience. When users feel emotionally connected to your brand, they are more likely to engage and make purchases.

Another effective way of engaging the audience through storytelling is showcasing digital adverts that encourage them to tilt or rotate their phones from different angles such as try coupons, play games or avail discounts. This can be further enhanced via Rich Media Ads as such ads are enriched with playable and eye-catching elements that beautifully draw user attention towards a brand.

For example, during Diwali, people prefer to shop for home decor things such as furniture, curtains, crockery, showpieces, electronics, etc. In fact, people prefer to paint their homes so Rich Media Ads with some playable components like colour palettes, paint buckets and brushes can be shown, encouraging users to pick the colour of their choice and experiment with them to get an idea of how colours would look at the walls of their home. This will help brands create a unique and recalling identity among users with the possibility of more conversion rates.

Another way of engaging the audience through storytelling is showcasing them with short ads like Bumper Ads, Contextual Video Ads etc as such ads majorly occur on social platforms and are proving to be a driving force in drawing users’ attention towards a brand. These ads help marketers analyze user emotions and sentiments and further showcase them the content, tailored to their emotional and personalized needs. Leveraging this, brands can better grip user attention and make the most of their festive campaigns.

For example, during Bhai Dooj, video content pertaining to siblings can be placed at the most engaging and eye-catching touchpoints on the device. This would help brands create a sense of belongingness, and recall value too, giving users a reason and a story to engage with it.

Storytelling enables brands to deliver tailor-made messages to individual preferences and behaviours. This can again be better edged via AI as it would help marketers collect and analyze user data and create personalized stories that align with audience needs and interests. Thus, the X-Factor of stories empowering brands can make it and sustain the digital ecosystem as it encourages users to effectively respond with the campaign that further builds a trust factor and an affinity between brands and netizens.

The article is written by Xapads Media VP, sales & marketing Alok Pandey