Festive marketing in Southeast Asia: Where culture, commerce, and connected screens converge

Festive seasons in Southeast Asia are more than calendar milestones. They are deeply cultural touchpoints that reshape consumer priorities, media consumption, and marketplaces. Festivals such as Chinese New Year, Ramadan, and Hari Raya drive significant spikes in retail activity and advertising engagement, requiring marketers to move beyond generic seasonal campaigns to culturally synchronized, data-informed strategies.

Yet, today’s consumers are navigating higher living costs and inflationary pressure. That shapes their festive buying behavior. Deals and value matter, but emotional resonance and digital engagement now determine which brands truly connect.

How SEA consumers behave during festive peaks

Across the region, festival shopping is both intentional and omnichannel.

Value and intentional spending dominate:
High cost of living remains top of mind for consumers across Southeast Asia, with nearly nine in ten saying they are concerned about rising costs. A majority delay purchases until major sales events. Online shopping is preferred for deal hunting, and participation in large sales events is high.
Digital and physical touchpoints converge:
Online channels, especially mobile, are core to festive shopping behavior. As ecommerce expands, video commerce and multiscreen consumption are reshaping discovery and purchase paths.
Emotion drives engagement beyond discounts:
Festive intent is fueled by cultural emotion and storytelling. Narratives that reflect family, tradition, and identity drive higher recall and deeper consumer affinity during key festivals.​

Chinese New Year: Early discovery and sustained momentum

Chinese New Year continues to be a protected retail moment across Southeast Asia, with resilient spending and high promotional engagement despite economic pressures.

Fashion shopping behaviour highlights sharp market contrasts. In Singapore, 58 percent purchase in physical stores, 22 percent via brand websites, and 17 percent through marketplaces. Malaysia mirrors a balanced split with 50 percent offline and 29 percent digital. Thailand leans into marketplaces at 39 percent, while Vietnam leads digitally with 52 percent buying via marketplaces and only 31 percent in store.

Promotion sensitivity is widespread. Active deal hunting is highest in Thailand at 76 percent and Vietnam at 79 percent, followed by Malaysia at 68 percent and Singapore at 58 percent. Group buying, while niche in Singapore at 11 percent, rises significantly to 20 to 23 percent across Thailand, Malaysia, and Vietnam. Flash sales drive urgency in Thailand, group discounts resonate in Malaysia and Vietnam, and bundled convenience works best in Singapore.

Spending resilience remains strong, despite economic headwinds. In Singapore, 58 percent expect spending to stay the same and 31 percent expect increases, with only 11 percent planning cuts. Optimism is higher in Thailand and Vietnam, where 53 percent and 62 percent respectively anticipate spending more.

For marketers, this signals one clear reality: CNY strategies must reflect each market’s channel maturity, value triggers, and promotional behaviour while leveraging culturally anchored storytelling to convert sustained intent into action. (Source: milieu)

Marketer takeaways: One regional strategy will not work. Align commerce activation with each market’s channel maturity and promotion triggers, while anchoring campaigns in culturally relevant storytelling to capture both intent and emotion.

Ramadan: Sustained engagement over weeks

Ramadan remains one of Southeast Asia’s most commercially significant retail periods, extending well beyond a last-minute Eid spike.

In 2025, retail sales across the region grew 13 percent year-on-year during Ramadan. Consumers are planning earlier, with an average 19-day gap between the first product visit and purchase in the final two weeks, even as conversions peak closer to Eid. Indonesia saw final fortnight sales surge 35 percent, and Malaysia 26 percent, while Singapore remained steadier.

Religious and ceremonial categories led growth at 54 percent, followed by apparel and accessories at 18 percent, alongside broader festive spending across home, furniture, and food. The pattern is clear: Ramadan demand builds in phases, requiring brands to engage consumers well before the final days. (Source: MI)

Marketer takeaways:

• Activate early and maintain presence throughout Ramadan to align with extended research cycles and peak period conversions.
• Build full funnel strategies that balance discovery during the first half of the month with performance led pushes closer to Eid.
• Align messaging with cultural priorities, especially religious and ceremonial moments, while expanding into adjacent categories such as apparel, home, gifting, and food.
• Use data driven signals to time communication around high intent windows rather than concentrating budgets only in the final days.
  

Hari Raya: Localized expression and value signals

Hari Raya shopping behavior underscores the cultural nuance within the region. Emerging insights show that consumers in Malaysia and Indonesia actively hunt deals for clothing and hampers within defined budget ranges, and digital commerce plays a central role in that process. (Source: mili.eu)

Even within this targeted deal pursuit, creative preference shows divergence, with Malaysian audiences responding strongly to nostalgic storytelling and Indonesian audiences engaging more with humor and inspiration. This requires differentiated creative frameworks to avoid one-tone seasonal messaging. (Source:FY Ads Singapore)

Marketer takeaways:

• Segment creative approaches by cultural preference, tone, and narrative format.
• Prioritize platforms that amplify social and video engagement during high-traffic periods.
• Optimize omnichannel paths to meet consumers wherever they engage — digital, in-mall, or at community bazaars.

Broad Ad spend and consumer shifts during festive seasons

The evolving nature of festive media budgets reflects broader shifts in consumer behavior.

• In East Asian festive markets, creative tone is shifting from spectacle to restraint. With 2026 growth sentiment feeling tentative and spending decisions more considered, exaggerated optimism appears increasingly out of sync. Leaders at TBWA\Media Arts Lab Shanghai highlight that subtle, emotionally useful storytelling can cut through more effectively than high-energy celebration.
  
• The largest brands are moving away from dramatic visual excess toward narratives centered on inner journeys and grounded emotion. This tonal evolution comes even as festive ad budgets typically increase by 20 to 50 percent during peak seasons, as competition intensifies and CPMs surge, according to analysis by ULP. (Source: Campaignasia)
  
• In Muslim-majority Southeast Asian markets, authenticity strongly shapes advertising effectiveness. In Indonesia, 37 percent of consumers perceive heartfelt storytelling as most authentic, followed by campaigns promoting charitable or sustainable action at 32 percent. (Source:Marketech)
  
• In Malaysia, family-led storytelling resonates most at 37 percent. Messaging rooted in local culture follows at 26 percent, while campaigns reflecting real communities account for 22 percent. Across markets, celebrity- or influencer-led campaigns rank lowest in perceived authenticity.
  
• Viewing patterns shift meaningfully during the festive period. In Malaysia, television peaks between 7 PM and 10 PM, capturing 47 percent of audiences, with late-night viewing from 10 PM to 2 AM still significant at 21 percent.
  
• Indonesia shows a more evenly distributed consumption curve, with 34 percent concentrated in the evening and 30 percent engagement in the afternoon, while daytime viewing remains comparatively limited in Malaysia.
• Consumer paths increasingly blend online browsing with offline purchase fulfillment, making omnichannel attribution and cross-device measurement essential.

Strategic Playbook for festive campaigns

To capture festive momentum in Southeast Asia, marketers should:

Plan narrative arcs, not banners
Festive campaigns must begin before peak purchasing and extend beyond single dates to capture intent formation, evaluation, and conversion stages.

Activate across screens with coherence
Connected TV builds cultural presence, mobile captures intent, and omnichannel tactics drive measurable action. Each touchpoint should carry contextually consistent language and timing.

Leverage data to personalize at scale
Festive intent is not monolithic. Build segmented journeys using first-party and contextual signals so that consumers receive relevant offers and creative experiences across their preferred screens.

Measure impact beyond impressions
Festive success must be quantified with meaningful KPIs tied to reach, message resonance, and conversion across connected screens and digital environments.

mediasmart’s Perspective on festive success

At mediasmart, we see festive seasons not as ephemeral spikes but as extended cultural journeys where emotional resonance converges with performance signal flows across screens. In practice, this requires three core principles:

1. Where Cultural Moments Meet Intelligent Timing

   With mediasmart, festive planning is aligned to cultural peaks and real time audience signals across markets. Brands can activate early through high impact Connected TV placements and sustain visibility as demand builds, ensuring messaging remains relevant from discovery through decision making.
2.  

3. Omnichannel Storytelling Across Screens and Spaces

   mediasmart enables a unified omnichannel approach that connects CTV, mobile, and Digital Out of Home within a single programmatic framework. Large screen storytelling builds emotional resonance, while mobile engagement and location aware DOOH placements reinforce messaging in moments that influence action. Audiences are managed holistically to maintain consistency and precision across touchpoints.
4.  

5. Performance Built Into Every Festive Touchpoint

   Festive effectiveness goes beyond impressions. mediasmart integrates measurement, attribution, and optimization across channels, allowing brands to track impact across screens and physical spaces. Campaigns are continuously refined to drive meaningful outcomes, from engagement to store visits and conversions.
6. 

Festive marketing in Southeast Asia is evolving rapidly. The brands that win are those that understand the cultural context, leverage diverse screens strategically, and connect emotionally while driving efficiency and growth.

Conclusion

Festive marketing in Southeast Asia demands more than heightened budgets and seasonal creatives. Chinese New Year, Ramadan, and Hari Raya each reveal distinct patterns in intent, value sensitivity, media consumption, and cultural expectation.

Consumers plan earlier, move across screens fluidly, and respond to authenticity over spectacle. Emotional relevance drives recall, while data driven timing drives conversion.

The brands that win will be those that align cultural nuance with precise activation, build coherent multiscreen journeys, and measure success beyond reach alone. Festive moments are not short term spikes. They are strategic opportunities to combine storytelling, commerce, and performance with discipline and depth.