Highlights
- Brands must dynamically adjust to evolving consumer preferences.
- AI technologies are revolutionizing the landscape of marketing strategies.
- Conversational commerce is facilitating enhanced consumer interaction.
The competitive landscape for brands is intensifying, as they grapple with a marketplace burgeoning with options. The dual mandate of acquiring new clientele while penetrating emerging markets is ever-pressing.
Marketers in retail and e-commerce face the relentless challenge of tracking shifts in consumer behavior.
With an increasing number of consumers engaging with products online and shopping experiences expanding across diverse platforms, brands must re-strategize their outreach and sales conversion methodologies.
This urgency amplifies during festive periods, where the shopping spree transcends Diwali and encompasses weddings, Christmas, and New Year celebrations.
For marketers, the imperative lies not only in targeting the appropriate audience but also in rapidly producing relevant content, assessing its efficacy, and realigning campaigns to resonate with shifting consumer desires.
“Customer acquisition remains a paramount focus across industries. The era of a singular advertisement running for extended durations is behind us,” remarks Meghna Apparao, Director of E-commerce & Retail (India) at Meta.
In an engaging discussion with ET BrandEquity, Apparao elaborated on the evolving priorities of CMOs in retail and e-commerce, the accelerating integration of AI, the burgeoning role of creators in campaign execution, and the emergence of conversational commerce.
The CMO Conundrum
Retail and e-commerce CMOs find themselves navigating a convoluted marketplace that is rapidly evolving.
Their foremost challenges encompass distinguishing their brands amidst rampant competition, adapting to consumer demand fluctuations, and quantifying the efficacy of marketing initiatives.
Meta’s latest festive playbook articulates these pressures, particularly pronounced during peak sale periods when brands vie intensely for consumer attention.
The playbook delineates five cardinal pillars for marketers: achieving sales or lead generation benchmarks, maintaining brand visibility, fostering demand anticipation before peak shopping phases, acquiring new clientele without compromising profit margins, and ensuring seamless conversion across online and offline consumer journeys.
It advocates for a holistic approach, urging brands to cultivate awareness and consideration preceding peak shopping periods, subsequently concentrating on conversion efforts.
The guidance extends campaigns beyond Diwali to incorporate events such as Black Friday, the wedding season, and year-end sales.
Apparao identifies a substantial opportunity in tapping consumers newly entering the retail and e-commerce landscape, viewing India’s comparatively low penetration as an open frontier, especially within Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets.
“An abundance of opportunity exists,” she notes, highlighting the potential of creators, localized content, and communication channels such as WhatsApp to attract new customers.
Meta’s data indicates that nearly 60% of fresh online shoppers are emerging from Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets, underscoring the imperative of reaching consumers beyond metropolitan centers. Meghna Apparao
Moreover, brands are honing in on the critical need to render their campaigns more germane and adapt them with agility as consumer preferences shift.
Rather than relying on static advertisements, marketers emphasize the creation of novel content and performance analytics to fine-tune their strategies.
Creators emerge as pivotal allies in this endeavor, assisting brands in recognizing nascent trends and transforming them into pertinent content.
AI’s Transformational Impact on Campaign Planning
According to Apparao, artificial intelligence is becoming increasingly integral to the framework by which retail and e-commerce brands strategize, implement, and evaluate their digital marketing endeavors.
From creative generation to campaign optimization, brands are harnessing AI-enhanced tools to engage new audiences, bolster operational efficacy, and enhance commercial outcomes.
She asserts that Meta’s Advantage+ suite of AI tools empowers brands in meeting disparate business objectives—whether aiming to acquire new clientele, reach Generation Z, or reconnect with existing customers.
“We observe distinctly favorable outcomes across all products and campaigns utilizing this technology,” Apparao emphasizes, noting improvements across metrics like cost-per-click, customer acquisition, and return on ad spend (ROAS).
The burgeoning reliance on AI is also manifesting in creative development. In its Q2 2026 results, Meta reported a surge in global demand for its AI-driven creative instruments, with nine million small businesses utilizing at least one such tool available on its platforms.
As evidenced by our Q2 2026 results, we are witnessing robust demand for our innovative AI-driven creative tools on a global scale, attracting nine million small businesses using at least one of our AI ad creative offerings.
We are also unveiling new all-encompassing creative solutions to aid advertisers in translating performance data into informed creative decision-making, she remarked.
Broadening Festive Prospects
For marketers, the challenge has evolved beyond merely attracting new clientele or achieving prominence during crucial sales events.
With the festive shopping window expanding from Raksha Bandhan to wedding celebrations and year-end festivities, brands are endowed with numerous prospects to engage consumers, cultivate demand, and facilitate purchases.
As noted by Apparao, the advertiser composition on Meta exhibits consistency, with businesses across various sectors continuing to leverage its platforms.
Notably, smaller enterprises play a crucial role in this ecosystem, with approximately 92% of Indian businesses on Meta classified as MSMEs.
Furthermore, nearly 200,000 small businesses utilize Click-to-WhatsApp ads monthly, enabling them to forge direct connections with potential customers.
On category trends, she identified that beauty and fashion sectors are exhibiting significant momentum this festive season.
This uptick, she suggests, is partially attributable to evolving consumer shopping behaviors and the profound integration of these categories within the social media landscape.
Quick commerce also emerges as a noteworthy trend. With an increasing number of market players offering expedited delivery options during the festive season, online shopping might sustain robust levels leading up to key events.
Apparao observed that typically, online purchases tend to decline about seven to eight days before a significant festive peak as consumers pivot to in-store shopping; however, swifter delivery alternatives could potentially alter this trend, extending purchase opportunities for brands right until the festive occasion.
While Meta refrains from disclosing specific data regarding advertising investments by category or identifying sectors facing challenges, the prevailing trends hint at a broader opportunity for brands to actively engage consumers across a more extended festive timeframe, utilizing both discovery-oriented content and immediate purchase avenues.
Evolving Advertising Methodologies
In contrast to the previous year, Apparao articulated that there is no singular trend delineating festive advertising for 2026.
Instead, brands are enhancing their utilization of pre-existing strategies, encompassing collaborations with creators, AI applications, scaled creative production, and conversational commerce.
“Although the core channels remain intact, the art lies in the innovative application of these channels this year,” she elucidated.
Additionally, Apparao referenced conversational commerce as a nascent domain, enabling brands to transcend conventional one-way advertising and engage consumers through interactive dialogues.
WhatsApp plays a pivotal role in this transformation. Recently, Meta has launched advertisements on WhatsApp Status, providing businesses with an additional platform to connect with consumers.
Smaller enterprises are also leveraging Click-to-WhatsApp ads to convert interest generated on Facebook and Instagram into meaningful conversations on WhatsApp.
For brands, the evolving challenge lies not merely in maintaining presence across diverse channels but in capitalizing on these channels through finely tuned creatives, creator-driven discovery approaches, and direct engagement with consumers.
Source link: Brandequity.economictimes.indiatimes.com.
