AI takes centre stage in festive ads as brands seek faster, cheaper campaigns

Companies across segments, including Oppo, SBI Life Insurance, Haier and Eastern by Orkla India, have used AI-generated advertisements during the wedding season. The technology is emerging as an alternative to the big-budget productions that brands have traditionally relied on during the festive period.

A traditional 30- to 90-second television commercial can cost ₹50 lakh or more, depending on its production requirements. “AI-generated advertising can cost a fraction of traditional production, although the actual savings depend on the script, complexity and quality expected,” said Preetham Venkky, chief digital officer at Omnicom Advertising India.

“The induction of AI is no longer a matter of choice. It is almost the norm,” said Sandeep Goyal, chairman of Rediffusion. He said advances in AI-generated imagery and video have made it increasingly difficult for consumers to distinguish AI-generated advertisements from conventionally filmed ones.

Cost savings

AI is also influencing marketing budgets. Instead of spending heavily on a single production, companies can create multiple variations and spend more on other initiatives.

“By bringing AI into early script ideation, packaging visualization and copy adaptations, we compressed weeks of back-and-forth into just a few days,” said Arvind Mediratta, founder and chief executive of FreshTerra, a food and grocery retail brand.

Ferns N Petals (FNP), the gifting and floral retailer, has also adopted a combination of human and AI-led production. “Our speed of creative execution has increased by nearly 4X, allowing us to develop, test and deploy a much larger volume of creatives in a fraction of the time,” said Avi Kumar, the company’s chief marketing officer.

FNP has seen better click-through rates—the share of people who click on an advertisement after seeing it—while return on advertising spend has remained broadly stable.

Beauty brand RENÉE Cosmetics has reported higher engagement and lower production time for its AI-generated advertisements. “In our campaigns, AI-generated ads have delivered 30.16% higher engagement rates compared with conventional creatives, while helping reduce production time by an estimated 70–80%,” Priyank Shah, co-founder of RENÉE Cosmetics, said.

The company also reported a 10–20% reduction in cost per result—the cost of achieving a desired outcome, such as a click or purchase—in campaigns where the data supported such a range, Shah said. The figures suggest potential gains in both creative output and cost efficiency, although results may vary across campaigns.

Still, advertising executives caution against treating AI as a substitute for creative judgment. Consumers may respond to an advertisement because of its story and relevance, rather than the technology used to produce it.

Venkky said AI could work across categories, from fashion and beauty to food and jewellery. The deciding factor is whether the technology suits the creative idea. Products that depend on accurate representation, such as jewellery, luxury goods and food, require particular care.

Sam Mahandru, founder of IndoBevs, the beverage company behind BroCode, said the starting point for any brand extension or creative campaign should be consumer preferences rather than the technology used to produce it.

“The festive season is one of the most crowded times in the consumer space, and a bigger budget doesn’t automatically buy more attention. Whatever the time of year, what matters most is whether our consumers can relate to our campaigns,” Mahandru said.

He cited the company’s work on the campaigns ‘Unhinged India’ and ‘BroTection’, which he said draw on Indian subcultures and consumer concerns. Its in-house brand team is exploring AI and other tools to speed up production and test different creative approaches, he added.

“In that sense, AI supports our creative thinking and process. We judge every campaign the same way: by how well it reflects our consumers’ deepest thoughts and aspirations,” Mahandru said.

For advertisers, therefore, AI's immediate advantage may lie more in the speed and scale of production than in making every campaign more effective.

Neethi Lisa Rojan

Neethi Lisa Rojan is a senior correspondent focusing on the consumer goods and retail sector working from Mumbai for Mint since 2026. She has been a journalist for a little over two years with Moneycontrol and The Morning Context. She has covered the consumer and healthcare sectors in earlier roles. She was a double gold medallist during her bachelor’s from Mahatma Gandhi University Kerala and post-graduation from Pondicherry University. With a background in commerce and journalism, she brings a sharp analytical lens to stories on India’s fast-evolving consumer goods and retail sector.With an academic background in business administration and a keen eye for financial statement analysis, she bridges the gap between corporate data and compelling narrative journalism. Her reporting is characterized by a focus on how evolving consumer behaviours and regulatory changes impact India's largest mass-market brands. She is a keen learner with diplomas in international business, human rights and journalism. She specialized in business journalism at the Asian College of Journalism, Chennai. When she is not looking into shopping carts, you can find her explaining the latest conspiracy theory.

Rudrani Chattopadhyay

Rudrani Chattopadhyay is a Mumbai-based journalist. At Mint, she covers the creator economy and education, with a particular interest in the smaller trends taking shape across digital media. She believes every trend has a story behind it and likes digging into the people, ideas and shifts that sit beneath what is immediately visible. Before joining Mint, she worked at The Statesman in Kolkata, where she started as an intern before working as a sub-editor on the print news desk. She holds a master’s degree in Media Science and a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the University of Calcutta. Rudrani keeps too many tabs open in her mind, is a raging maximalist and has a soft spot for historical fiction and feminist literature. She is happiest when in the company of coffee.