LESS IS MORE: Festival shopping turns extra joyful with GST cuts | Photo Credit: Dhiraj Singh

My wife and I shop for groceries at a department store in the South End Circle area of Bengaluru. A few weeks ago, as we entered the store, we saw prominent stickers on many shelves, highlighting lower prices and the quantum of GST reduction. The shopkeeper proudly told us, “Prices have come down, so you can buy more now!”

Consumption rebound

The consumption rebound we have seen in many categories across India during the last quarter of 2025, after the GST reduction took effect on September 22, is among the foremost themes I would like to call out, as I reflect on this year. Post the reduction, sales of cars increased by over 40 per cent during October, and have remained robust. Sales of electronic products, such as air conditioners and television sets, also surged during the Dussehra and Diwali season.

Not all categories benefited similarly, but it is quite clear that the GST cut has, overall, struck a positive note for the Indian consumer economy. What also helped was the widespread communication about the price drops, as seen in my neighbourhood department store.

GenZ confusion

While GST came down, confusion about GenZ remained high. Brands wish to target the significant spending power of this 377-million strong cohort in India — in fact, one out of every four people in our workforce is GenZ, and they are driving massive consumption of $860 billion this year, which is more than 40 per cent of the total Indian consumption spend.

However, many brands are yet to evolve clear marketing plans for GenZ and remain awash in questions. Is GenZ casual and lazy, living in a meme-driven world or is it as serious about life and career as the millennials have been? What exactly does it mean when GenZ-ers say they are “100 per cent authentic” or “just in the moment”? If deep traditions and constant experimentation are both integral parts of their lives, if fantasy-driven visuals and real-life stories both appeal equally to them, what should marketers do? A sharp understanding of GenZ will be critical for Indian marketers in the years ahead.

Commoditisation of AI

As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella told us during his recent visit to India, there are more than 11,000 AI models available from the Microsoft foundry alone. Other tech companies have a huge collection of AI models too. With such a vast menu on offer at competitive prices, baseline AI services appear to have commoditised themselves in 2025. Therefore, brands have to work extra hard at putting the right slices of AI to the best use to derive a differential advantage.

This requires human agency, and the current year has made it clear to me that marketers who are able to deeply couple their native intelligence with the power of AI are most likely to win. AI tools are becoming a utility, much like electricity or the internet, which marketers should use smartly to fuel the two ‘I’s that really matter — insight and imagination.

Big and bold ideas

One of my defining experiences during the year was listening to outstanding speakers at the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity 2025. My biggest takeaway was actually quite simple — great brands are built by investment in big, bold ideas and not by a hamster wheel of content. David Lubars, who won the Lion of St Mark award for his lifetime achievements in advertising, was asked whether big ideas matter more than little ones today. His answer: Big ideas build brands. What we need are lots of little executions of a big idea, to carry across all touchpoints. By far the best marketing advice I have heard this year.

A fond farewell

I was deeply saddened by the passing away this year of Piyush Pandey, advertising legend and a personal friend. Piyush led the transformation of Indian advertising over the past few decades. He combined insightful observation and child-like simplicity with the power of the Indian idiom to create memorable advertising that built multiple brands such as Cadbury, Asian Paints, Titan and Fevicol. Even as we wrap up this year, I would urge all marketers to heed Piyush’s words and get back to simple, insightful, emotive storytelling as the currency of brand communication. Because that is where the real magic lies.

Goodbye, Piyush. Farewell, 2025.

(Harish Bhat is an avid marketer and bestselling author)

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Published on December 15, 2025