Brands boost festive ad spends, allocate up to 40% to nano and micro influencers

With just less than 10 days until Navratri and Durga Puja, the festive season countdown is on, and brands of all sizes are stepping up advertising campaigns, capitalizing on both festival excitement and the recent GST slab revamp.

While celebrity-led campaigns have traditionally dominated festive marketing, the landscape is shifting. The high engagement levels of social media creators with their audiences are prompting brands to rebalance their spending.

Creator intelligence and collaboration platform Qoruz has anticipated that brands will splurge over Rs 700 crore on influencer marketing during this festive stretch.

'Small creators over celebs'

Ferns & Petals' Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), Avi Kumar, said the gifting platform has consistently increased spending on social media influencers quarter-on-quarter, as the strategy has proven "highly effective" in building credibility and trust.

FNP has allocated 40% of its ad budget to nano (1,000-10,000 followers), and micro (10,000- 1 lakh followers) influencers for authenticity and community engagement, and 60% to macro (1 lakh to 10 lakh) influencers for scale and festive storytelling.

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"The festive season spans multiple occasions, and we have shortlisted influencers specific to each festival. Beyond Instagram, YouTube creators will also be a major focus. It will be a healthy mix of nano, micro, and macro influencers, including both always-on creators and festival-specific ones, to ensure consistent visibility as well as festive spikes," Kumar said.

Similarly, skincare brand VLCC has increased influencer marketing spends by 20% for the festive period. "Since our biggest influencers are subject experts and doctors, we have tapped 100 such individuals across nano, micro, and macro levels," said Taniya Pandey, Chief Marketing Officer, VLCC Group.

She said that while nano and micro creators drive grassroots engagement, macro influencers amplify visibility. "Our selection remains data-driven yet firmly aligned with brand values--prioritizing authenticity, engagement quality, and content relevance".

Gurugram-based beauty brand Swiss Beauty also evaluates influencers on three key fronts: audience match, engagement quality, and content authenticity. CMO Vidhushi Goyal said emphasized "regional" creators, saying, "A creator in Lucknow or Coimbatore can sometimes build deeper resonance with their followers than a celebrity with a pan-India base. So our strategy is very clear: we look for influencers who don’t just endorse us, but truly mirror the diverse, modern Indian beauty consumer". Swiss Beauty eyes 20% revenue growth during this festive quarter compared to last year.

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Fast fashion retailer Madame will dedicate nearly 12–15% of its festive digital spend on influencer marketing, up from 10% in 2024.

"Compared to other digital channels, influencer collaborations have given us up to 3x higher engagement rates and a measurable lift in festive sales conversions," said Sumedha Jain, Marcomm Head, Madame

Jain has exuded confidence that Madame will clock double-digit growth this festive season, driven by influencer-led storytelling combined with simultaneous retail and digital experiences.

Another fast fashion label, Libas, has also moderately increased influencer marketing spend for the festive and wedding season. "Influencer-led content sparks aspiration and helps build an emotional connection with our audiences. Together, they form a complementary ecosystem that strengthens festive campaign impact," said CMO Nisha Khatri.

'Shift from followers to engagement'

Brands are moving beyond vanity metrics. "Rather than looking at overall engagement rates, brands now analyze comment sentiment and genuine interaction patterns. A nano influencer with 5,000 followers generating meaningful conversations about products carries more weight than a larger creator with passive likes," said Ritesh Ujjwal, co-founder of influencer marketing agency Kofluence.

He added that brands prioritize influencers whose audience demographics match their target consumer profile for specific festivals. For instance, during Karva Chauth, brands prefer creators with strong engagement among married women aged 25-45, while Ganesh Chaturthi campaigns focus on audiences concentrated in Maharashtra and South Indian.

Festive campaigns are different from usual marketing campaigns as they demand cultural authenticity. Brands evaluate creators based on their community-specific engagement, regional language factor, and local cultural contexts.

'Brands beeline for nano-micro influencers'

Experts said that nano and micro influencers will continue to be significant in the long run for festive marketing for brands. "They will move from being 'supporting acts' to central pillars of festive strategy," said Shraddha Panday, Creator & Founding Member, The New Thing.

According to Panday, features such as the 'Shop Now' button and affiliate links have turned influencers into a "customisable sales funnel", making the "awareness content" tag less relevant.

"As brands move away from mass to niche cohorts, this tier of influencers will become indispensable. They offer exactly what modern festive marketing demands: scale, but with an edge of personalisation," Panday added.

'Value proposition'

While nano and micro influencers are often seen as cost-effective, brands say their real value lies in conversion.

"The real value of small creators lies in cost-per-acquisition and lifetime customer value. For example, a nano influencer might charge Rs 5,000 for a campaign that generates 20 genuine inquiries, while a celebrity campaign costing Rs 5 lakhs might generate 500 inquiries with lower conversion intent," Ujjwal said.

Himanshu Rawat, Business Manager, Nofiltr.Group said that while a celebrity may create buzz, a small influencer creates behavior change. "People trust people. Especially people like them," said Rawat.

During the festive season, when consumers make big-ticket purchases and gifting decisions, recommendations from relatable creators carry more weight than celebrity endorsements.

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"We have seen micro-influencer content outperform most celebrity campaigns on ROI. A single Ganesh Chaturthi activation we did crossed 3 million organic views - on less than 3% of the spend of a brand film," Panday noted.

According to Ujjwal, traditional festive budgets that earlier allocated 70-80% to celebrity partnerships and mass media are now shifting to approximately a 50-60% split for celebrities and macro influencers, and 30-40% for micro and nano creators. This rebalancing allows brands to maintain broad reach while achieving granular market penetration, he added.

The tilt towards nano and micro influencer partnerships reflects a large marketing evolution in the country. Brands are moving beyond surface-level metrics to build meaningful, culturally relevant connections with consumers, especially during the festive period.