Decoding the warmth that define winter marketing

“Winter stories in India were never about spectacular snow; they were about the small rituals of staying warm, culturally grounded, and emotionally universal,” recalls Saurabh Sankpal, Chief Creative Head at Wit & Chai Group. His words capture a truth many Indians instinctively recognise: winter advertising in the country has always drawn its power not from dramatic landscapes but from domesticity, intimacy, and the emotional warmth of family rituals.

Classic campaigns reinforced this approach. Monte Carlo’s 1989 ad, for example, featured Nasser Abdulla in a romantic setting, promoting woollens for cosy couples against cold backdrops.

Cadbury’s early Dairy Milk Winter Romance ads paired friendly snow fights with chocolate moments.

Yet the winter season today looks nothing like it did two decades ago. India’s cold months now overlap with the biggest commercial period of the year, stretching from Diwali to New Year, the consumer spending season. Internet usage rises sharply as temperatures fall, studies estimate a 34 per cent jump in online engagement, while discretionary spending peaks across categories such as apparel, skincare, appliances, travel, beverages and gifting. E-commerce alone is projected to take between a quarter and a half of all festive-season advertising spend in 2025.

Against this backdrop, winter communication has evolved from a single-season storytelling moment to a diverse ecosystem of micro-seasons, regional cues, hybrid narratives and AI-led personalisation. The shift reveals not just how India shops, but how it feels, remembers and responds to the cold.

Woollens, cold cream, and an emotional season

Early campaigns for Pond’s Cold Cream or Charmis relied on trust and nostalgia rather than science, following the rhythm of household rituals. The humble green Boroline tube became so tightly connected with winter care that in many parts of the country it was known only as ‘the one with the elephant.’

At the same time, winter storytelling in India produced some unforgettable pop-cultural moments. One of the most enduring examples is Pond’s ‘Woogly Woogly Wosh’ campaign, a film that showed warmth, tenderness and playfulness so perfectly that it became less of an ad and more of a seasonal anthem for care.

Similarly, Nivea’s mother-child winter intimacy films set the template for gentle, emotionally anchored winter communication. Vicks’ cough-and-cold campaigns, though not exclusively winter ads, became deeply ‘winter-coded’, portraying families shielding one another from the seasonal chill. In apparel, classic campaigns like Lux Cott’s Wool’s ‘Sardi Mein Bhi Garmi Ka Ehsaas’ and Amul Bodywarmer’s ‘Ab Sardi Udan Chhoo!’ emphasised warmth as reassurance, often through exaggerated humour or celebrity presence.

Together, these campaigns built the emotional memory bank of Indian winters that have shaped how generations understood the season.

Sankpal argues that such communication worked because it mirrored real Indian winters: “Campaigns like Nivea’s classic mother-child warmth narratives anchored winter as a season of care. They linger because they built a very specific sensory memory: touch, comfort, protection, all wrapped in cultural familiarity rather than seasonal spectacle. Vicks cough and cold campaigns made winter synonymous with comfort and recovery.” These memories shaped how an entire generation understood the season, less as a weather event and more as a mood.

Digital disruption and the arrival of India’s many winters

The mid-2000s began a shift that would eventually redefine winter communication. With rising smartphone penetration and the surge of e-commerce, winter stopped behaving like one country-wide season and splintered into multiple lived realities. Delhi and Punjab battled freezing fog, while Mumbai and Bengaluru saw light chills. Southern states continued with mild evenings but no true winter. Travel also became a seasonal catalyst, as more Indians flew abroad or sought snow destinations.

As a result, brands could no longer rely on a single winter message. Digital platforms made visibility measurable and consumer behaviour traceable in real time. Performance-led budgets meant winter campaigns were expected not only to evoke warmth but to drive conversions. Categories such as fashion, beauty and electronics saw winter advertising surge by double digits, fuelled by mobile-first discovery and short-form video.

In this new landscape, the winter narrative became increasingly intimate. Sankpal believes digital storytelling has shifted the aesthetic: “The backdrop becomes slower and more intimate. Campaigns lean into togetherness, with rituals like morning chai, foggy school days, and protection from the elements.” But intimacy today is rendered through texture, colour and mood rather than literal depictions of winter. Warm palettes, indoor closeness and tactile fabrics dominate reels and films. Humour and modern nostalgia, memories of childhood winters reframed through contemporary families, have also become defining motifs.

The new categories shaping the winter quarter

Personal care continues to anchor the season, but the language has changed. Instead of universal claims about moisture, brands now speak of ingredients, routines and city-specific skin concerns. Oily skin in dry air, pollution-induced irritation and region-specific routines have entered the vocabulary.

Apparel, however, has seen the most pronounced shift. The winterwear market, now worth well over ₹12,000 crore, has moved from heavy knits to lightweight layers, technical fabrics and travel-friendly warmth. Influenced by global fashion, younger consumers look for pieces that transition from work to holiday, pairing puffers with kurtas, fleece jackets with dresses, and heat-retention base layers with everyday outfits. D2C brands, shaped by feedback-driven design and sustainability concerns, have embraced lightweight silhouettes and recycled materials, selling warmth as a lifestyle rather than a necessity.

Food and beverage brands, meanwhile, build winter around immunity, indulgence and comfort. Soups, chai, hot chocolate and honey reach peak sales during the season, and their communication focuses on family moments, nourishment and the emotional cadence of winter evenings.

Even home appliances have discovered a new winter identity. Oil-filled radiators are framed as health-friendly alternatives to traditional heaters, while hot-and-cold ACs, whose demand has risen by nearly 50 per cent, are marketed as long-term, all-weather investments. The story has shifted from cost to comfort, and from emergency purchases to wellness-led decisions.

Travel has become a distinctly winter category as well. With 92 per cent of young travellers drawing inspiration from social media, winter destinations, snow-covered Himachal, fog-draped Uttarakhand, European holidays, are marketed not as sightseeing spots but as sensory, restorative experiences. The season’s travel advertising now speaks of “clean air”, “quiet escapes” and adventure rather than monuments.

Regionally adaptive winter storytelling

Indian winter advertising has long adapted itself to regional realities, with language, climate and cultural cues shaping how warmth and comfort are depicted. In North India through the late 1980s and 1990s, for instance, Monte Carlo’s Hindi and Punjabi commercials placed couples against romantic backdrops, Vicks ran Hindi and Tamil variants showing families managing coughs through foggy Delhi nights or cooler Chennai evenings, and Horlicks created regional Hindi spots in Himalayan states emphasising winter nutrition for school-going children.

These campaigns illustrate how brands historically treated winter not as a uniform season but as a set of localised conditions , an approach that continues today. No brand reflects this shift more clearly than UNIQLO, which has approached winter in India as a spectrum of regional needs rather than a single narrative.

Nidhi Rastogi, Marketing Director at UNIQLO India, says the brand’s recent approach reflects these nuances: “Winter has always been a time when we showcase how LifeWear supports people through changing weather and emphasise product innovation like HEATTECH. Our recent campaign with Bollywood icon Kareena Kapoor Khan was built on this by showing how warmth can feel light, comfortable and easy to wear through the day.”

The brand’s communication is designed to be cohesive across mediums. “The campaign received strong visibility across digital, print and OOH, which helped take the message to a wide audience in a consistent manner. We carried the same approach across our stores and digital presence to help people understand the range and the technology behind it. This clarity and consistency strengthened recall for HEATTECH during the season,” she explains.

Importantly, Rastogi emphasises that the Indian winter is not monolithic. She says, “Winter varies across the country, so our focus is not limited to a single region. While cities in North India do see stronger demand because layering becomes part of everyday dressing, we are also seeing steady traction in markets like Bangalore, Pune and Mumbai, where changing weather patterns and travel play an important role in how people plan their winter wardrobe.” The brand's strategy reflects the rise of micro-winters, each region meeting the season differently.

UNIQLO’s winter communication also intersects with its wider brand philosophy. As Rastogi notes, “Our approach in India has been shaped by a growing preference for comfort, quality and thoughtful design, which aligns closely with the LifeWear philosophy.” Celebrity collaborations, whether with Kareena Kapoor Khan or Rahul Dravid, are approached through this lens: “We work with creators who genuinely connect with UNIQLO’s LifeWear philosophy and reflect and resonate with our values of simplicity, quality and functionality.”

Where winter communication is headed

The next phase of India’s winter advertising will be defined by personal relevance at scale. AI-led recommendations are already shaping festive shopping, and consumers now expect virtual try-ons, dynamic product suggestions and personalised lock-screen content. Yet even as technology accelerates, the emotional centre of the season remains unchanged. As Saurabh Sankpal notes, “With AI, what will matter this year for the winter narrative is a more personal relevance at scale without losing brand soul. The challenge will be preserving craft and emotion in an ecosystem where every consumer sees a slightly different version of the season.”

This tension between speed and soul is shaping how brands plan for the winter calendar. Nidhi Rastogi points to the importance of coherence as brands scale across platforms: “Our media approach for winter follows a 360-degree strategy to keep winter product messaging clear and consistent. Digital continues to be central, and this is further strengthened through CTV and supported by print and OOH during the peak winter period.” Her emphasis on clarity, ensuring that every touchpoint reinforces the same message, reveals how brands are adapting to a landscape where winter is no longer one season, but a collection of micro-moments shaped by region, climate, travel and screen behaviour.

The evolution of winter communication in India is, ultimately, the story of the evolving Indian consumer. From woollen sweaters and cold creams to HEATTECH and hybrid wardrobes, from family rituals to personalised recommendations, the season continues to transform. Yet its emotional core, warmth, intimacy and the pull of shared winter memories, endures. The brands that succeed will be those that hold on to this emotional continuity while adapting to the technological and cultural shifts redefining how India experiences its many winters today.