How Indriya plans to secure a foothold in India’s lavish wedding market

How lavish has the Indian wedding become? With average budgets for a middle-class family starting around ₹12-15 lakh and easily scaling to ₹36.5 lakh or more, the answer is: monumentally lavish. As this cultural cornerstone transforms into an economic powerhouse, destination weddings now average over ₹51 lakh, and nearly 9% of all weddings cross the ₹1 crore mark.

This is the high-stakes, ‘ever-booming wedding market’, valued at approximately $130 billion in 2024, that the Aditya Birla Group officially entered in July 2024 with a ₹5,000 crore investment in its new jewellery brand, Indriya. Jewellery and fashion are a significant part of this spend, commanding 15-20% of a typical wedding budget.

After celebrating its first anniversary in July 2025, the brand has been deploying high-concept campaigns, such as the 'Alka' festive collection, aiming to strengthen its positioning through ‘creative and innovative storytelling’.

As the brand moves past the initial festive push, it is now sharpening its focus on the critical and lucrative bridal sector. Shantiswarup Panda, Chief Marketing Officer of Indriya, Aditya Birla Jewellery, detailed the brand's strategic approach to navigating this complex and competitive landscape.

The core strategy

While Indriya has launched collections for all occasions, Shantiswarup Panda confirmed that the bridal segment is the brand's primary strategic focus.

"Indriya is a new-age jewellery brand that caters to every occasion segment," Panda stated. "However, our key focus is to establish a strong foothold in the bridal jewellery space by leveraging our deep design expertise and exceptional craftsmanship rooted in diverse cultural traditions. This presents a significant opportunity for us to lead and differentiate within the category.”

This strategic push comes at a time of market resilience. Panda noted that the festive season, a precursor to the wedding period, has performed well despite economic headwinds. "This festive season has started strongly for Indriya. Despite record-high gold prices, demand remains robust.”

He observed that consumer behaviour is shifting in Indriya’s favour, with buyers now prioritising quality and design over price. Customers, he said, are increasingly drawn to intricate and meaningful designs, becoming more discerning in their choices.

“This is why, even in times of elevated gold prices, our young brand continues to attract and retain loyal customers,” shared Panda.  

Targeting a complex bridal audience

Panda explained that the marketing strategy needs to differentiate between the broad festive season and the more specific, high-stakes wedding market.

"Indriya targets a large audience for festive because it is a macro purchase occasion in India with multiple micro-occasions in a 4-5-month period," he said.

The bridal market, however, requires a more nuanced, multi-pronged approach. "For bridal campaigns, while bulls eye target audience are the brides-to-be and their families, but a lot of jewellery is also purchased by those who attend the weddings and for gifting during wedding," Panda explained. "So the campaign has to suitable have creative execution and targeting of these adjacent segments along with bridal segment.” 

The creative blueprint

To reach this complex audience, Indriya's creative strategy remains anchored in a consistent brand philosophy. "Indriya’s creative strategy is consistent with our brand positioning which celebrates women’s deep love for jewellery through an immersive story telling format," Panda stated.

Panda pointed to the recent 'Alka' festive campaign, featuring brand ambassador Aditi Rao Hydari and her husband, Siddharth, as a prime example of this storytelling philosophy. The campaign film captures an intimate and playful moment during a festive gathering. It portrays Aditi appearing to have lost a special ring, only to reveal she had hidden it as a way to draw her husband away from the surrounding guests. 

Panda explained the casting choice was deliberate, "Indriya believes in authentic communication, which is based on customer insights, and hence it helps to cast a real-life couple.” This authenticity was crucial for the story's concept. 

“Our story was based on the insight that there is always an inner circle, the “us” amongst the “we” and the heart longs for them, and that has been beautifully captured in this film quite naturally.” 

The entire scene is set against a soulful, reimagined version of the classic song ‘Abhi na jao chhod kar’. This song was chosen to evoke nostalgia and serve as the brand's ‘sonic identity’

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This thematic focus on a deep, personal connection was also evident in a separate campaign for the Indriya Diamond Collection, which was framed as a poetic conversation between a woman, her diamonds, and the craftsman, exploring the ‘eternal allure’ of the gems. Beyond traditional films, the brand has also invested in experiential marketing to bring its positioning to life. 

For the 'Aasmaniyat' collection, Indriya transformed the ceilings of theaters in Mumbai, Delhi, and Hyderabad into immersive storytelling surfaces that projected shimmering diamond visuals, timed to the on-screen ad and the theme of the film Sitare Zameen Pe. Panda also highlighted another example for Dhanteras, where the Bandra-Worli Sea Link was illuminated with projections of the brand’s gazelle logo and festive jewellery, turning the iconic landmark into a beacon of light that connected heritage with modern expression.

Speaking about the brand’s upcoming campaign, Panda said that the bridal campaign would be its own creation, not just an extension of the festive theme. "We’re currently finalising the creative direction for our bridal campaign," he said. "The storyline will ultimately be shaped by the emotion we want to evoke, so it’s too early to confirm the narrative structure at this stage.”

The hyperlocal challenge of a national rollout

A core component of Indriya's strategy is a rapid, ongoing expansion of its physical retail footprint. Panda explained that managing this growth, while maintaining a premium, localised experience, is a primary challenge.

"Each Indriya store is designed as a theatre of experience, created to engage our customers fully," he stated. "True to the brand’s promise of evoking all five senses, every store requires thoughtful support both at launch and throughout its lifecycle. We follow a three-tier approach: one for existing markets, one for new cities, and one for new stores within existing markets, with support tailored according to this framework. Beyond this, we adapt and improvise based on the specific needs of each catchment area.”

The brand's first year of operations has reinforced the need for this granular approach. "Indriya is still in the stage of infancy, and our biggest learning has been that each catchment is unique in its own ways and needs specific curation of content, messaging as well medium which makes the brand more relevant," Panda shared. "So, this category is not about operating at scale but about designing and perfecting different models to ensuring the brand has a native appeal.”

As for the brand's long-term vision, Panda concluded that the mission will remain consistent.

"Five years is a long time in a fast-paced world, and nothing is set in stone," he said. "That said, unless there is a significant shift in the key drivers of the jewellery category, Indriya will continue to uphold its consistent position: celebrating a woman’s profound love for jewellery, rooted in exceptional design and fine craftsmanship.”