Beyond price wars: Capturing Gen Z’s attention to win the festive battle

India's festive calendar, from Ganesh Chaturthi to Diwali and into the new year, is a grand spectacle that showcases the intersection of culture, community, and commerce at scale. Streets, screens, and shopping carts light up in unison, turning this season into not only a cultural crescendo but also the country’s single biggest economic moment.

For businesses, the upside is clear: consumer sentiment peaks, intent is high, and over 9 in 10 (92%) Indians say they plan to maintain or even increase their festive spending this year. But the challenge is just as apparent. With every brand pushing offers and campaigns, attention is stretched thin. 

In such a crowded season, when both streets and digital feeds are lit up with offers, discounts, and campaigns, one critical question stands out: will your brand merely occupy visual real estate, or will it truly leave a mark?

What brands must chase, then, is that elusive Midas touch where fleeting impressions turn into lasting connections. And in today’s economy, the true gold isn’t reach or frequency, but real attention that drives real results. 

The attention imperative

The recent “Attention Advantage” report reveals that for this audience, attention rarely lasts beyond 9 seconds. Interestingly, even fleeting exposure for less than a second can build recall, but it takes sustained attention for over 3 seconds to create deeper connections. 

As Gen Z rewires the attention economy, businesses must adopt new metrics such as Attention Per Mille (APM), which gauges the amount of genuine attention an ad receives per thousand impressions, thereby expanding the conversation beyond mere reach and frequency. 

The ultimate winner? Even a jump of a mere 5% in APM2 can lead to up to 2x gains in brand perception.

But the bigger question is that in an age of constant flash sales, discount banners and app-exclusive deals, what is the winning festive recipe for attention? 

With 78% wanting pricing to reflect real value and for promotions to deliver something more, it is clear that price is not enough to hold attention; what captures it instead are experiences that feel engaging, rewarding, and worth remembering.

The winning festive media mix

For India’s most digitally connected generation, mobile-first design is the baseline for engagement, but what makes people stop and stay is immersive storytelling. 

AR lenses, for instance, blend interactivity, surprise, and reward all into one and are over twice as effective and thrice as efficient at sparking voluntary engagement among Gen Z. 

With a heavy appetite for AR-led interactions and nearly 1 in 2 (42%) enjoying gamified experiences to win rewards, there is a renewed room for creativity being built into the online journeys of consumers. 

During the festive season, these formats can come alive as gamified shopping experiences, festive-themed filters, or play-to-unlock rewards that transform festive campaigns from the background noise of passive impressions into interactive and ultimately memorable brand interactions.

Beyond AR, playing with multiple formats can help span the full spectrum of engagement for young audiences. Vertical, bite-sized storytelling and short-form video ad formats are central in riding the creator economy boom and beating the attention conundrum by meeting festive shoppers in their preferred shopping arcades. 

Redefining success 

Winning attention during festivals is not about deploying bigger budgets or flashier campaigns but about making strategically smarter choices that resonate deeply. 

The most successful brands will leverage three critical levers – platform selection, format innovation, and creative excellence. The challenge is not to outspend but to outimagine, embedding gamification, delight, and personal value in every interaction. 

Brands that relook at success metrics to include Attention Per Minute (APM) and plan, measure, and optimise accordingly will be remembered long after the celebrations end. 

(Our guest author, Neha Jolly Sawhney, is the Head of Ad Revenue-India at Snap Inc.)