Why Karwa Chauth is the new marketing tentpole

In our evolving cultural landscapes, Karwa Chauth presents a unique opportunity for marketers to unlock the potential of traditional festivals

It happens. Sometimes marketers miss a reality, or an emerging reality, even though it is right in front of them. Karwa Chauth, as a festival, seems to be one such glaring example. For years, brands have tried to build up Valentine’s Day as the high-point of romance and love and campaigned narratives around that script. Marketers across the spectrum have vied with one another to put out sentimental and mushy creatives to attract young (mostly unwed) couples. But it turns out that they all got the target audience and release date wrong — the ready and ripe audience was actually the wedded couples (and their families), observing Karwa Chauth every year, that needed to be wooed.

It was my daughter Carol’s first Karwa Chauth this year, and she was going to be celebrating it in Chandigarh. Mehndi rates, she told me, had skyrocketed — Rs 1,000 a hand against the normal price of Rs 50. The rate was in fact Rs 5,000 for new brides. More importantly the mehndi-walis had serpentine queues of eager customers. Carol took almost three hours to get the time and attention of the tattoo lady. Sweetmeat shops apparently had no space even to stand. Stocks of traditional matthis, which are part of the prayers, were being replenished every few minutes. Silver and gold jewellers too were inundated with over-flowing and eager customers. Bazaars had a festive look no less than Diwali. Similar reports and pictures of overcrowded bazaars have come in from other towns and cities too from the Hindi heartland: The sentiment everywhere was just electrifying.

Most marketers have traditionally fought shy of Karwa Chauth, labelling it as a “regressive” festival because it is the wives who fast for their husbands and that obviously scores very badly on the woke and gender equality scales. But society, one has always believed, finds ways to right obvious wrongs. In my daughter’s generation, most couples now fast together for each other and for their common love. So, in a few years, that regressive tag will get watered down for sure. 

So where did marketers go wrong? First, in believing that what works everywhere in the world will work in India too. Valentine’s Day has been actively marketed by brands for at least 30 years now, but it still remains largely a big city phenomenon with, at best, tepid success. Secondly, brands have all along marketed to the “fall in love” market of young romantics, while the actual consumer was part of the “grow in love” market, the wedded couples — no wonder the Valentine’s celebrations have often had both societal and political push-back while Karwa Chauth, on the other hand, has traditionally been sanctified by strong family support (including significantly large budgets) and is anchored in traditions celebrated in all Karan Johar films. Yet marketers missed the mark.

Karwa Chauth, my belief is, will go the Akshaya Tritiya way in the years to come. Akshaya Tritiya, as a “promoted” festival, is barely 20 years old. It is now, however, firmly anchored in the religious and cultural fibre of the country. Marketing initiatives triggered by the World Gold Council and the fortuitous coming together of astute astrologers and innovative jewellers has today made it an intrinsic part of the psyche of the Indian family. This auspicious date now has sanctity, it has fervour and it has started to develop deep roots. Karwa Chauth could develop into a similar marketing tentpole.

Methinks brand managers need to think afresh, and differently. They should look closely at a larger India canvas with a Bharat lens. Matri Navmi (ashvin mah ke krishn paksh ki navami tithi) may actually get much more love from mothers and traction for brands pan-India if well thought through, and communicated with the desired love, respect and gratitude than the Western Mother’s Day. Few marketers realise that there is actually a Kaumudi Mahotsav (kartik mas ki purnima), which can be grown as a commercial ballad of love of much bigger proportions than Valentine’s because it would have local and mythological moorings. Equally, Guru Purnima (Teacher’s Day) or Dhanvantri Jayanti (Doctor’s Day) or Vishwakarma Jayanti (Technology Day) or Sampann Saptami (Children’s Day) or Kanya Bhoj (Daughter’s Day) or Aanvla Navmi (also called Tulsi Vivah), which is like Environment Day, are all apertures with immense potential, given the right positioning, the right messaging, and coordinated efforts by marketers — and they already exist in our traditional calendar.

Rakshabandhan, Dhanteras and Bhai Dooj are already big festivals, and can be promoted to become even bigger. Vishwakarma Jayanti today is little more than a holiday for all carpenters and blue-collared workers, with a puja of their working tools. Clever marketing can reposition it as our technology-targeted Black Friday sale day, more so since it comes right after Diwali, our equivalent of Christmas in the Western world.

Karwa Chauth next year should be an opportunity capitalised, not missed.   

The writer is chairman of Rediffusion