This is the second Diwali that we Indians are witnessing since the infamous coronavirus pandemic has set in. 2020 has definitely not been the year to look back and cherish the memories. The previous year indeed witnessed the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic, accelerated with economic downfall, migrant crisis, nationwide lockdown, and what not. All of us can still, in fact, feel the resounding horror from the year before.
Though 2021 has started with rays of hope with the discovery of vaccines and the channelization of the vaccination process, mankind has still not been able to shake off the clutches of the dreaded virus. This is a crucial time when most of the restrictions are lifted but they did not seem to escape our mental cages, weighing down heavily on your nerves.
Therefore, with the advent of Diwali this year, our hearts seem to rejoice with excitement but our minds will make us abide by the imposing restrictions on bursting crackers and celebrating whole-heartedly. However, marketing knows no end!
The realization of Diwali, being a festival of sentiments, is always smartly exploited by genius advertisers and marketers with their amazing advertisements, which are promoted across diverse social media platforms along with trending hashtags. This culture of brainstorming innovative advertisements revolving around a special day or a festive occasion has simply got a renewed boost in the past couple of years and has been significantly surging the brand sales. In this regard, 2021 is not an exception.
So, here’s taking a look at some of the most creative ads surrounding Diwali, which grabbed the attention of the millennials and others around the country:
Cadbury Celebrations Diwali Ad - Not Just a Cadbury Ad
Launched in - 2020, 2021
Category - Inspiring, Empowering
Targets - Local shops and businesses
Cadbury advertisements and Diwali go hand in hand for years now. This year, as the Indian economy is facing the wrath of Coronavirus outbreak, with many small businesses shut and people unemployed, Cadbury launched Not Just a Cadbury Ad campaign on the occasion of Diwali. This particular Cadbury ad is also an advertisement for hundreds of small local businesses across the country. Cadbury Celebrations’ ad campaign provides an advertising platform to local retailers, whose businesses would have been impacted by the pandemic. Cadbury presented a unique real-time data experience in it's campaign video where it advertised not just for itself but also for various small businesses across India.
Cadbury had already launched its Not Just a Cadbury Ad in the previous year. It was a second edition of the Cadbury advertisements this year, which is again built to empower the local brands and businesses. The Diwali 2021 ad of Cadbury is centered around Shahrukh Khan, the Bollywood actor, who is recently being dragged into numerous controversies. This year Cadbury helped King Khan be the brand ambassador of numerous small and medium-sized businesses across the country. Cadbury managed to do this with the help of cutting-edge Machine Learning technology to map the actor’s face and voice and empowered all the brands to create their own versions of the ad to promote their products. As revolutionary as it is, Cadbury managed to deliver what they promised even this time around.
Pepperfry Diwali Ad - Kuch Apne Liye, Kuch Apno Ke Liye
Launched in - 2021
Category - Empowering
Targets - Family
Pepperfry's latest Diwali shows a father-daughter duo fighting for an armchair as they look for the best WiFi connectivity spot in the house. The daughter says that she has to study online whereas her father says that he needs to work. The daughter then says that "Talk to Mumma." On realising that he is about to lose, the father calls it truce by gifting another armchair to his daughter for Diwali, placed right next to his. The father asks his daughter "Do you want to choose your Diwali gift?"
Tanusha Verma
The advertisement film is conceptualised by L&K Saatchi & Saatchi
Coca Cola Diwali Ad - Iss Diwali Karo Rishtey Raushan
Launched in - 2021
Category - Cheerful, Togetherness, Relationships
Targets - Family and all other kinds of customers
The landlord-tenant duo played by Ranbir Kapoor and Paresh Rawal are back in a Diwali advertisement that is running on all major channels on television. The advertisement was first uploaded to Coca Cola India's YouTube channel on October 2019 but has a comeback, both on its channel again (as a reupload) and on TV screens. The advertisement features Ranbir Kapoor as a tenant, spending Diwali away from his family and Paresh Rawal asks him if he was any less than his family, to which he replies that one normally doesn't ask for rent from their family members.
Oppo Diwali Ad - #BeTheLight To Spread The Light
Launched in - 2020
Category - Empowering
Targets - Family, friends, and other customers
This beautifully curated advertisement features two students and their tutor who celebrate the festival of lights together. The three and a half minute film portrays the core of the festival with a tagline 'Be The Light That Spreads the Light'.
The OPPO F17 Diwali Edition launch presents two kids who love lighting sparklers but do not have the means. The boy preserves a half-burnt sparkler in his compass box to gift it to his friend but the boy accidentally misplaced it.
When their tutor learns of this, he decides to be the light and gifts the boy a box full of sparklers to celebrate Diwali with his friend. The tutor in turn, also sees himself gifted with the all-new OPPO F17 Pro’s Diwali Edition by his mother.
Shoppers Stop Diwali Ad - Hum Hai Roshni
Launched in - 2020
Category - Empowering, Driving sales
Targets - Couples, family, and others
Shoppers Stop celebrates this festive season as a celebration of families who come together in these difficult times and rise above, with positivity. This power to overcome comes from within all of us. Hum Hai Roshni is a metaphor of this power. The film inspires us to find this brilliance within all of us and usher in the festive season.
The advertisement portrays the festival of light as one gets the ray of light back into their lives amid the challenging times.
Lakshya Singh
Sensodyne Diwali Ad - For the Love of Festive Favourites
Launched in - 2020
Category - Cheerful, Touching, Driving sales
Targets - Family
Sensodyne, a toothpaste brand from GSK Consumer Healthcare, rolls out the mouth-watering advertisement campaign #ForTheLoveOfFestiveFavourites, presenting the traditional Indian cuisines without which the festivals are incomplete. The film suggests that you can celebrate your festivals by eating your favourite dishes without even worrying about tooth sensitivity.
In the Diwali advertisement released by Sensodyne in 2020, two sisters who cannot travel back to their hometown recreate the magic of Nani’s Malpua under her supervision and guidance over a video call and the advertisement showcases the joy of celebrating festivals.
TVS Credit Diwali Ad - Sabki Tarakki
Launched in - 2020
Category - Sentimental, Empowering
Targets - Everyone, especially the economically weaker sections
TVS Credit launched the #SabkiTarakki campaign with its innovative and hopeful Diwali advertisement, which is designed to empower the Indians with renewed hope for a brighter future ahead. The advertisement starts with the children learning the practice of opening the doors of their house to usher Lakshmi or prosperity into their homes. They go on preaching this practice but were depressed to find a poor security guard with no doors in his house. However, they ultimately decide to get a door affixed to the entrance of his house to the joy of the poor person. The ad finally ends in the Diwali celebrations together without any restrictions!
TVS Credit Services Ltd. announced the onset of the Magical Diwali festive campaign ahead of the season’s celebrations with the launch of this advertisement in 2019. The consumer promotion in its third consecutive year focused on adding to the festive fervor of the consumers by inviting them to share some joyous pictures and selfies of their latest purchase, where they also stood a chance to win exciting prizes.
The fifteen-day long #MagicalDiwali contest started on 1st November and invited the customers to share pictures of any consumer durable goods or two-wheelers that they bought through TVS Credit easy loan facility.
Shubham Kumar
HP India Diwali Ad - Umeed ka Diya / Diye Se Diya Jaley
Launched in - 2018, 2021
Category - Sentimental, Empowering
Targets - Local arts, artisans, local businesses and others
HP India brought out the extremely emotional advertisement titled “Umeed ka Diya”, (translated to “enlightening hopes”) which not only promotes HP laptops and printers in an innovative way but is also a ray of inspiration for all the local craftsmen and artisans of India. The Hp ad, which targets #GoLocal, helps us visualize the local craftsmen of our country India, who are destitute, and how they can be helped with the digital advertisements today via the cutting-edge hardware and software that are available now!
Diye Se Diya Jaley is the 2021 HP India ad, which the brand brought out on the occasion of Diwali in the same year. With this advertisement, HP aims to empower the local businesses around us. The HP ad starts with local businesses and businessmen talking among them to prepare for the festival of lights. On the other hand, they see that one of their fellow businessmen has to bid adieu to his previous shop and shift to another space. His juice corner will be set up in a dingy lane outside the commoners' sight, which is why he is afraid that his sales would go down. The ad concludes with all the businessmen helping the owner of the juice corner by distributing pamphlets all around the area advertising his shop, which, in fact, results in boosting his sales, thereby making his business brighter.
Vivo India Diwali Ad - Celebrate the #JoyofHomecoming this Diwali
Launched in - 2021
Category - Sentimental
Targets - Family, friends and others
Vivo’s advertisement, “Live the Joy with your family” is cleverly built around the #JoyOfHomecoming. The Vivo Diwali ad is portrayed on a downcast grandfather, who is depressed about being lonely in the festival of lights. However, the new tenant who was due that day gave the old man company and posted their bittersweet moments online via his Vivo phone, which eventually struck a chord in the hearts of his sons and daughters, who made their way the very next day. The ad ends with the homecoming, followed by the reunion of the family.
Realme India Diwali Ad - #HopeforGreatThings with realme
Launched in - 2021
Category - Sentimental, Empowering
Targets - Family, friends and others
Realme India works on its #HopeForGreatThings with #realme campaign with a touching ad based on a child who misses his late grandfather and is overcome with all the sweet memories of the past, when they used to celebrate Diwali together. This sadness was noted vividly by the tenant who lives in their house. The man was later seen to work with his colleagues and successfully arranges a drone sequence of lights, which ends up displaying “Happy Diwali Chiku” and makes the child’s Diwali special!
Amazon Prime Video Diwali Ad - Apno Wali Diwali with Amazon Prime Video
Launched in - 2021
Category - Cheerful, Driving Sales
Targets - Family, friends and others
Amazon Prime launched #ApnoWaliDiwali where the brand targeted all the viewers of the OTT service providers and propagated the message of enjoying Diwali with their family and not by watching web series, which are always there around the year. Mirzapur was the web series that Amazon centered its advertisement on, where the infamous Kaleen Bhaiyya aka Pankaj Tripathi admits that Diwali is an occasion to be together with one’s family.
Conclusion
Diwali advertisements are creative audio-visual productions that are primarily designed to drive sales for the brands. However, some of them often transcend their main motive and act as motivational pieces that inspire and touch the lives of the consumers, their families, and their societies in general. Such advertisements brightens our Diwali for sure and are often looked up to for years to come!
Happy Diwali!
