Guest Column: Can Regional Music Become A Year-Round Brand Property Instead Of A Festival-Season Strategy?

For years, regional music has been a powerful cultural touchpoint for brands in India. From Punjabi tracks and Gujarati Garba to Bhojpuri hits and Marathi folk, music rooted in regional identities has helped brands connect with consumers in ways conventional advertising often cannot. Yet much of this engagement remains seasonal, peaking around festivals, weddings and cultural celebrations.

The bigger question is whether brands can move beyond these calendar-led associations and build regional music into a year-round marketing property.

India’s regional music markets offer far more than seasonal relevance. They represent distinct languages, cultural codes, audience behaviours and increasingly influential music ecosystems. Regional artists are building loyal fan bases, live performances are reaching new markets, and digital platforms are making music more accessible across geographies. For brands, this creates an opportunity to move from occasional visibility to sustained cultural participation.

The challenge is to look beyond the obvious.

A Garba-led campaign during Navratri or a regional track around a harvest festival can deliver cultural relevance at the right moment. But if a brand returns to the same audience only during the next festival, it risks treating regional music as a media opportunity rather than a long-term relationship. Cultural connection cannot be switched on for a few weeks and expected to deliver lasting brand recall.

The opportunity lies in building continuity around culture.

There are already examples of how music can move beyond conventional advertising formats. Coca-Cola’s association with Gujarati music through Coke Studio Bharat’s ‘Khalasi’, featuring Aditya Gadhvi and Achint Thakkar, demonstrated how traditional folk influences could find a contemporary expression and reach audiences well beyond their immediate cultural context. The campaign connected with the energy of Navratri, but its wider significance lay in putting Gujarati music and artists at the centre of a mainstream cultural conversation.

Similarly, JioSaavn’s ‘We Are India’ campaign brought together regional-language music, playlists, podcasts and artist stories across multiple Indian languages. Rather than relying on a single song or festival moment, the initiative created several entry points for audiences to discover regional talent. These examples show how music can become a broader discovery and engagement platform, rather than simply a soundtrack for an advertising campaign.

Brands can take this further through original compositions, artist collaborations, local-language storytelling, music-led digital content, campus initiatives and live experiences. Instead of adapting a national campaign into multiple languages, they can work with artists and music communities who understand the nuances of their audiences.

A brand engaging with Punjabi music, for instance, need not restrict itself to Baisakhi or wedding season. It can build a continuing association with emerging Punjabi artists, independent releases, youth culture and live music. A brand connecting with Gujarati audiences can extend beyond Navratri by exploring contemporary Gujarati music, regional talent and local cultural movements.

The same principle applies across markets. The objective is not to manufacture a music property in every language, but to identify where a genuine cultural fit exists and invest accordingly.

However, consistency alone will not guarantee success. Authenticity will determine whether audiences stay.

Regional audiences are not homogeneous, and language is only one part of cultural identity. Music preferences differ across age groups, cities, communities and consumption habits. A campaign that works in one market may not translate to another simply because both share a language.

Brands must therefore collaborate with artists, composers, music labels, cultural curators and local creative communities who can bring credibility to the partnership. These collaborators should have a meaningful role in shaping the music, narrative and format, rather than being brought in merely to lend a regional face to a predetermined campaign.

There is also a commercial question: how should brands measure the impact of a year-round regional music strategy?

Festival campaigns often operate around short-term objectives such as reach, engagement, sales and seasonal relevance. A sustained music property requires a broader measurement framework. Beyond immediate campaign performance, brands should track repeat engagement, audience retention, sentiment, branded search, content consumption and the long-term association between the brand and the music property.

The economics matter, too. Building an enduring property demands investment in talent, content, distribution and programming. Brands must assess whether the audience and business opportunity justify that commitment, rather than assuming regional relevance automatically translates into commercial returns.

For the music industry, this shift could create more predictable opportunities beyond major releases and festival windows. Artists could gain longer-term brand partnerships, regional music ecosystems could attract sustained investment, and labels and independent creators could explore collaborations that extend beyond one-off campaigns. The value would lie not just in a single branded song, but in building an ecosystem around music and culture.

Ultimately, the question is not whether regional music can deliver during festivals. It already has a place in the festive marketing playbook. The real question is whether brands are prepared to invest in regional music when there is no immediate festival deadline, trending track or cultural moment demanding their attention.

The brands that succeed will be those that stop treating regional music as a seasonal campaign and start treating it as an ongoing cultural relationship.

Regional music is not seasonal for the people who create it or the audiences who live with it. It is part of everyday identity, entertainment and aspiration. For brands willing to engage with that reality, the opportunity extends well beyond the festive calendar.