India’s festive quarter has traditionally been a reach-and-frequency game for television advertisers. Brands would enter the same high-clutter weeks with broad demographic buys, GRP targets and a single universal creative. According to Vedavyas Badri, VP programmatic buying at LS Digital, artificial intelligence is now pushing connected TV beyond that model.
Planning around cohorts and festive micro-moments
Instead of buying primarily on age, gender and income, advertisers can build audience cohorts from signals such as content affinity, language, geography and household-level behaviour. That change matters most during the festive season, when one long campaign flight can be split into distinct festival moments with different creative for different audiences.
- Audience buying shifts from broad demographics to cohort signals.
- Individual festivals are treated as separate micro-moments.
- Overlap across OTT and FAST channels on the same TV is used to manage reach and frequency.
- Campaign objectives move beyond impressions toward outcomes.
Creative delivery becomes contextual
At the execution stage, language, geography and context increasingly decide which ad is served. A Hindi festive creative can be delivered in the North while a Tamil Pongal-themed creative runs in Tamil Nadu. Dynamic creative optimisation can also adapt offers, geography and calls to action based on the household being reached.
Cross-screen sequencing adds another layer. A household first exposed on CTV can be remarketed to later on mobile or desktop, extending the message beyond the television screen and connecting CTV to other touchpoints.
Optimisation and measurement move closer to real time
AI is making optimisation an active part of campaign delivery. Real-time bid optimisation steers campaigns toward desired outcome metrics, adaptive audience modelling shifts spends to better-performing cohorts, and automated frequency capping adjusts household-level exposure while the campaign is live. For brands with retailer data, delivery can be optimised against actual purchases instead of proxy metrics.
Measurement is also changing from post-campaign impression reports to real-time performance visibility. Cross-screen identity can connect a CTV exposure with later mobile or desktop interaction, helping brands understand the role the large screen plays across the full journey.
What marketers should do
For marketing teams, the festive window should no longer be planned as one uniform block. A simple planning loop can help: plan distinct cohorts, activate contextual creative, optimise live, and measure against outcomes. Teams should ask whether festive moments are being planned separately, whether creative variants exist for language and region, and whether CTV exposure is being linked to downstream actions or purchase data.
Source: ETBrandEquity.com
