Once dismissed as a gimmick, it is now being repackaged as a serious marketing muscle. Scratch cards, leaderboards, spin the wheel offers, AR try-ons, and trivia contests are how brands plan to pull you in. And the reason isn’t hard to decode. 

“Diwali alone can account for 30–40% of annual sales in some categories. Naturally, brands loosen their purse strings and experiment more—whether it’s richer storytelling or engagement-led ideas like gamification,” Vikas Shah, co-founder of BigCity Promotions, told financialexpress.com . What feels like “extra” in a regular quarter, he added, becomes “essential” during the festive peak.

Traditional ads have long struggled with a problem: passivity. A TV spot or banner might deliver impressions, but that doesn’t always translate into action. Gamification, marketers argue, fixes this. At BigCity, layering in gamified mechanics such as scratch cards or prediction games has extended dwell times from just a few seconds to as much as 90 seconds. Passive campaigns convert at about 1–3%. Add rewards, streaks, or levels, and conversion can jump to 8–15%, with repeat engagement from as many as 35% of participants.

Globally, gamified experiences are also said to drive 3–5x higher engagement compared to static ads. The pitch is simple: don’t just watch; play and while you’re at it, shop.

The data game behind the games

But scratch beneath the surface, and the “fun” has a more strategic purpose. For startups like WNNR, gamification isn’t merely about engagement; it’s about data capture. “Engagement alone is not a measure of success,” Trigam Mukherjee, co-founder and CEO of WNNR, said. His platform positions itself as a “gamified data intelligence” tool that helps brands own first-party data, an increasingly scarce commodity in a post-cookie, privacy-conscious world.

Through quizzes, contests, and challenges, WNNR captures behavioural insights that would otherwise be locked inside walled gardens like Meta or Google. In other words, gamified ads are not just serving discounts; they’re extracting intelligence under the guise of entertainment. It’s no secret that festive advertising in India is heavily front-loaded. With the peak shopping window compressed to just 45 days this year, marketers are rushing to make every impression count.

Nidhi Kohli Nandode, marketing head of Flam, noted that the battle for attention is fiercer than ever. “Marketers are expected to front-load their messaging and launch festive ads earlier than usual. With immersive formats, brands can cut through noise and deliver measurable outcomes,” she said.

This pressure is redirecting budgets. While TV and print remain powerful in Tier 2 and 3 markets, the more dramatic reallocation is happening within digital spends. Static banners and generic pre-roll videos are losing out to interactive video, WhatsApp-led campaigns, and gamified journeys. Gamified formats are now present in nearly a quarter of mobile ad campaigns, especially those targeting Gen Z.

The limits of play

Still, there are warning signs. If every brand serves up the same “spin-the-wheel” mechanic, consumers may soon roll their eyes instead of the dice. “Fatigue is a real risk,” admitted Shah. “The answer is variety—prediction games, timed challenges, knowledge-based formats.”

There are compliance headaches, too. In BFSI, gamified reward programs require watertight T&Cs, GST-compliant reward issuance, and fraud checks. And despite 5G rollouts, patchy network quality in semi-urban India still hampers seamless AR or immersive experiences. Add to this cultural quirks—Indians still like to touch, try, and trust before they buy, especially in categories like jewellery or ethnic wear—and the hype needs a reality check.

The bigger question is whether gamification is here to stay or just another seasonal gimmick. A few years ago, it was largely a Diwali “stunt.” Now, with plug-and-play templates and integration with reward platforms, Shah argues it’s scalable enough to become an always-on strategy.

Startups like WNNR are betting on exactly that: gamification as a continuous channel for data capture, not just a festive firecracker. D2C brands in fashion and beauty are already embedding gamified loops into loyalty programs and referrals. FMCG majors are experimenting with receipt-scan contests. BFSI players are using gamified quizzes for onboarding. 

Gamified ads may well be the darling of festive 2025. They promise more engagement, better ROI, and juicy data for marketers desperate to stand out in the season’s din. But like all shiny toys, the novelty could wear thin fast. The bigger risk is overkill, when every discount is dressed up as a “challenge” and every brand pretends to be a game master. For now, Indians may play along. But once the festive lights dim, brands will find out whether gamification truly builds loyalty or whether it was just another distraction in a market already bursting with them.

The post Gamified ads promose higher ROI, but they can outlast the festive rush? appeared first on BigCity.

The Festive 2025 consumer survey report reveals, the game has changed. Discounts are losing impact because they have become predictable and less persuasive. What is emerging in their place is a new instrument of persuasion: rewards. They are not merely transactional sweeteners, but tools of engagement, loyalty, and storytelling.

Why Discounts Are Losing Their Edge

When 78% of consumers say pricing should ‘go further’ beyond discounts, they are expressing a fatigue born of overexposure. A festival sale used to be an event; now, with perpetual ‘mega days’ and ‘lowest price’ claims, discounts no longer carry the thrill of rarity.

For a brand manager in FMCG, auto, retail, or consumer durables, this matters. Deep discounts cut into margins and often fail to create lasting loyalty. The consumer remembers the lower price, not the brand that offered it. Rewards, by contrast, enhance perceived value without lowering the selling price, protecting both profitability and brand equity.

The Power of Surprise and Delight

Among today’s consumers ‘surprise and delight’ is emerging as a strategic lever for differentiation. The concept is not about adding a token extra, but about engineering moments of value the consumer does not anticipate yet instantly appreciates. These moments transform a transaction into a brand encounter with emotional weight.

Ask shoppers what they want this festive season and many will tell you — 44% want to be surprised, 36% want rewards they’ve never seen before. The implication for brand leaders is clear: a competitive festive strategy in 2025 cannot rely on linear incentives alone. 

Rewards must be designed to break the expectation cycle, align with lifestyle aspirations, and deliver relevance at the exact point of engagement. Done right, this approach not only drives immediate conversion but also turns the product into an asset that price discounts can never match.

Gamification: From Engagement Tactic to Strategic Advantage

Gamification in festive promotions is often misunderstood as adding superficial “play” to a campaign. In reality, when designed with intent, it is a tool that drives repeat engagement, increases time spent with the brand, and enhances reward perception. Our two decades of experience have shown that well-structured gamification delivers higher participation rates, longer campaign life cycles, and stronger redemption metrics than static reward offers.

Our Festive 2025 survey also validates this: 42% of consumers enjoy gamified experiences, and this preference translates into measurable commercial outcomes. Mechanics such as tiered challenges, progressive unlocks, and instant-win loops create anticipation cycles that encourage multiple brand interactions across the festive season. Unlike discounts, which end at the point of purchase, gamification sustains consumer attention over days or weeks—maximising visibility, advocacy, and sales opportunities.

How Campaigns Are Discovered Now

The way consumers discover festive promotions has fundamentally shifted. According to our Festive 2025 data, 80% of campaign awareness is now generated outside traditional advertising channels—with social media, WhatsApp, and influencer-led content, emerging as primary touchpoints.

This has two strategic implications. First, campaign visibility is now driven by shareability rather than spend. The reward has to be distinctive and instantly communicable in a few seconds of screen time. Second, the moment of discovery is often peer-led, meaning campaigns must be designed for earned reach from the outset, not as an afterthought.

Why Reward Campaigns Fail

Even high-budget festive reward campaigns underperform when they miss core execution realities. The most common issue is a perceived lack of authenticity—our Festive 2025 data shows that 25% of consumers disengage if the reward feels “too good to be true” or is poorly communicated. Without clarity of offer and visible proof of legitimacy, trust collapses before the campaign can build momentum.

Another major barrier is redemption friction. Over 20% of shoppers drop out when faced with long forms, multiple verification steps, or delayed fulfilment. In the festive season, when shoppers are in a heightened state of urgency and distraction, the expectation is instant gratification.

Relevance is equally critical. 11% of consumers lose interest when rewards have little to do with the product category or their lifestyle, which also diminishes the likelihood of positive word-of-mouth. Even the most generous prize will struggle to drive advocacy if it feels disconnected from the purchase.

These are not operational footnotes; they are revenue risks. Each pitfall directly reduces campaign ROI and undermines the long-term equity of running reward-led promotions.

A Strategic Imperative for 2025

For brand managers, this is not a matter of creative preference—it is a question of competitive advantage. In the most important quarter of the year, the brands that will win are those that turn the festive season from a price war into a stage for memorable engagement.

Discounts may still move inventory, but rewards—personalised, gamified, and built to surprise—build relationships. They generate goodwill, advocacy, and repeat business. They convert festive footfalls into long-term customers.

In 2025, the choice for brand leaders is clear: keep playing the old game of arithmetic or embrace the new one of strategy. The former gives you a sale; the latter gives you a customer. 

The post Surprise & Delight Is the New Discount: Why Rewards Beat Price in 2025 appeared first on BigCity.

Budgets are front-loaded, creative bandwidth is stretched, and the battle for consumer attention reaches its peak.

But the truth is that festive clutter is real. Every brand is on air, every retailer is discounting, and every e-commerce giant is running a mega-sale.

What separates the winners isn’t how much they spend, but how smartly their campaigns cut through the noise. And increasingly, the lever that tilts that balance is rewards.

No longer token giveaways, rewards have become the bridge between consumer intent and brand recall. Here are five principles to design high-impact festive campaigns that generate loyalty, not just activity.

Rule 1: Design rewards as experiences, not just incentives

Too often, brands approach festive rewards as a cost line item: cashbacks, scratch cards, or bundled discounts. But what really drives resonance is the experience of being rewarded. A cashback hits the wallet, but an OTT subscription for the family, a fashion voucher for a festive outfit, or a dining experience with your loved ones hits emotion.

Experiential rewards are powerful because they are two-fold. In the build-up to Diwali, they drive participation. Post-festive, when consumers shift into self-indulgence, premium rewards become the lever for re-engagement.

Take Ferrero Rocher’s nationwide ‘Light up your Diwali’ campaign. On-pack QR codes were used to offer experiential and premium rewards that consumers could instantly claim. The result: stronger brand affinity, more packs picked up, and a surge in shareable, festive experiences, which amplified the brand’s premium positioning.

The learning: stop treating rewards as a tactical sweetener, make them the emotional spine of the campaign. Done well, rewards don’t just incentivise—they create stories that consumers remember long after the ad blitz fades.

Rule 2: Make gamification a non-negotiable 

A festive campaign should never feel like a broadcast. The strongest campaigns invite consumers to participate—to play, to unlock, to win. It’s what transforms a campaign from a one-off transaction into an ongoing engagement.

The mechanics don’t need to be complex. In fact, the best festive games are deceptively simple—spin wheels, streak-based unlocks, scan-and-collect journeys—that require little effort but deliver high stickiness. What matters is that the game feels intuitive, works seamlessly on mobile, and ties rewards directly to participation.

The credibility of gamification lies in its outcomes. Games extend the life of a campaign beyond Diwali day, create multiple interaction points, and ensure consumers keep returning to check their progress or try their luck again.

Importantly, the reward architecture must be carefully matched to the game: small instant wins to keep energy high, tiered mid-level rewards for sustained play, and aspirational prizes that make word-of-mouth inevitable.

A standout example is Havells’ ‘Open the door of Happiness’ campaign, which gamified the shopper journey across stores and digital touchpoints. With assured rewards, interactive play, and a grand prize, the promotion successfully increased average basket size, drove product traction among grooming-conscious buyers, and kept festive excitement high.

Rule 3: Treat redemption as an omnichannel imperative

Festive campaigns are discovered everywhere—on television, in WhatsApp forwards or Instagram Reels, through YouTube haul videos, or on a poster at a neighbourhood kirana.

The challenge is ensuring that once a consumer discovers the offer, the path to redemption works across channels too. A consumer who scans a QR in-store should have the same redemption journey as someone clicking a link on social media or entering through an e-commerce platform. If discovery is omnichannel but redemption is fragmented, the campaign collapses at the moment of truth.

The most effective festive reward campaigns are built with this consistency in mind: one offer narrative, one redemption mechanic, multiple discovery touchpoints. The smoother the bridge, the higher the brand trust and the stronger the recall.

Rule 4: Make redemption effortless

No festive campaign should leave consumers wondering: ‘Will I actually get what I was promised?’ Redemption must be mobile-first, near-instant, and frictionless.

The trust of the entire campaign rests on that one moment when a consumer receives their reward. That means rewards delivered in seconds, not days.

A single redemption journey that works whether the consumer is in a metro or a Tier-3 town. And a system built for scale, capable of processing millions of entries without error during peak festive days.

The credibility of a festive campaign isn’t in its celebrity endorsement or its media spend—it’s in the redemption moment.

Rule 5: Personalisation at scale 

The Indian consumer is no longer satisfied with one-size-fits-all gestures. The real opportunity lies in designing rewards that feel personal, even when delivered at scale.

Personalisation in festive rewards doesn’t mean customising for every individual; it means giving consumers choice. The family shopper in Patna, the millennial professional in Bengaluru, and the retiree in Pune each value rewards differently. For one, it might be a grocery voucher, for another, a fuel top-up, for a third, an OTT subscription. The more a campaign allows consumers to select rewards that are relevant to their lives, the more it deepens the sense of connection with the brand.

The technology to enable this now exists. With digital wallets, instant gift cards, and API-driven marketplaces, brands can move beyond ‘here’s your freebie’ to ‘here’s something meaningful to you’. And that shift—from transactional to personal—is what will separate the campaigns that are remembered from the ones that are forgotten.

If you’re a CMO planning the next festive season, the takeaway is simple: treat rewards as strategy, not tactics. In a market where media clutter is inevitable and price wars predictable, it’s the reward layer—the experience, the engagement, the redemption—that will determine whether your brand is part of the season or owns it.

The post Five rules for crafting a high-impact festive campaign appeared first on BigCity.

This is where reward-led storytelling enters the conversation. Not as a tactic.

Not as a promotional lever. But as a foundational shift in how brands design participation, emotion and relevance.

Why Storytelling Matters More Than Ever — Especially in Reward Marketing

Rewards, historically, were designed to create action. But when rewarding and storytelling are brought together intentionally, something interesting happens: the reward no longer sits outside the story; it becomes a narrative device inside it.

You can see this principle in action through campaigns where the reward didn’t interrupt the story — it amplified it.

Britannia’s Milk Bikis Nicknames campaign tapped into childhood nostalgia by inviting families to relive the playful nicknames that defined their early years. The personalised videos became the emotional anchor — turning small family moments into memories worth sharing. The Dubai family trip, offered as the headline reward, simply gave consumers a reason to act; what truly drove participation was the joy of seeing a childhood story acknowledged by the brand. That emotional pull is what moved families from noticing the pack to purchasing and engaging, turning sentiment into sales momentum.

Britannia’s Milk Bikis Nicknames campaign tapped into childhood nostalgia by inviting families to recreate moments around the playful nicknames we all grew up with. The personalised branded videos became the real highlight — turning these memories into moments families proudly shared. The reward simply nudged behaviour; it was the emotional connection and sense of recognition that moved families from noticing the pack to purchasing and participating, converting nostalgia into genuine sales momentum.

Similarly, HP’s Race to Space drew from the brand’s longstanding focus on environmental impact. Consumers submitted collages inspired by sustainability themes, and the most compelling entries won an opportunity for child–parent duos to visit NASA. Although the NASA experience was the narrative peak, the journey truly unfolded in the creativity and personal meaning behind each submission and acted as a powerful purchase driver, pushing consumers to buy, engage, and submit.

This is the core insight: storytelling gives rewards meaning, and rewards give storytelling momentum.

Why Reward-Led Storytelling Will Outperform Traditional Content-Led Storytelling

Traditional content asks consumers to feel something. Reward-led storytelling asks them to do something. That behavioural difference changes the outcome.

A static story competes for attention; an active story creates involvement. And involvement builds memory far more effectively than exposure. Digital media saturation has made it increasingly difficult for content to deliver impact without disproportionate investment. But reward-led narratives benefit from a different psychological pathway — one rooted in anticipation, agency, and personal gain.

This was evident in the Tic Tac’s “Gentle Messages” campaign. Consumers sent a short, uplifting message to someone, and each message unlocked a small reward. What made it powerful was that the act itself became the narrative. Consumers weren’t just reading a brand story; they were participating in one. As more people shared messages, the campaign naturally grew in visibility because every interaction generated another meaningful moment.

The reward didn’t push the story forward — the consumer did. 

How Brands Can Apply Reward-Led Storytelling Effectively

For brands considering this shift, the objective is not to bolt a reward onto a narrative, but to design the narrative around behaviours that matter.

There are three principles that consistently differentiate effective reward-led storytelling:

First, the reward must reinforce the emotion of the story, not interrupt it.

Recognition, progress, access, and personalisation often outperform discounts because they extend the narrative rather than break it.

Second, the story must be built to scale participation, not views.

The success of campaigns like Britannia or HP came from progressive engagement loops — each action opened the door to the next, creating a natural arc.

Third, the reward system must deliver instantly and reliably.

The consumer’s emotional cadence cannot be disrupted. When the story and reward flow seamlessly, participation becomes habitual.

And increasingly, a fourth dimension shapes success: gamification and technology.

Modern engagement is no longer linear; it is built on progression, micro-actions, real-time feedback, and personalised journeys. Gamified structures — levels, streaks, milestones, unlocks — give shape to the story, while technology ensures these pathways function at scale and without friction.

How Will Reward-led Storytelling Change Brand Outcomes

Brands that adopt reward-led storytelling will experience a fundamental shift in their marketing performance. They will see higher quality engagement because the consumer is not merely an observer but a participant. They will see richer first-party data because reward-driven narratives capture intent, behaviour, and preference — not just impressions. And they will see stronger loyalty because consumers remember the role they played in the story.

The impact extends beyond campaign metrics. It builds cultural memory.

Britannia’s nicknames, HP’s student journeys, Tic Tac’s small gestures of kindness — these became memorable not because they were loud, but because consumers shaped the story themselves.

Why Reward-Led Storytelling Represents the Future of Engagement

Consumer behaviour in India is moving toward participation-driven ecosystems. Gamified frameworks, interactive formats, predictive engagement, and personalised rewards are now part of the everyday digital vocabulary of younger audiences. These behaviours align perfectly with reward-led design.

Moreover, with AI personalisation maturing rapidly, rewards can now adapt to a user’s behaviour, region, previous interaction, or even predicted interest. This means the narrative itself can evolve based on the individual — creating a dynamic, deeply personal engagement loop.

In a digital landscape where brands are increasingly indistinguishable in content, pricing, and media strategy, reward-led storytelling becomes a differentiator that cannot be easily replicated. It is experiential, behavioural, and emotionally anchored — attributes that outperform static content in any attention economy.

And the ultimate advantage: reward-led storytelling creates a narrative consumers feel they own, and ownership is the purest form of loyalty.

The post Why reward-led storytelling is set to reshape consumer engagement in India appeared first on BigCity.

2026 will bring another one of those shifts — not loud or dramatic, but structural. And it will revolve around something surprisingly timeless: rewards.

Not the coupon tucked under a bottle cap. But rewards as the very architecture of how brands create, measure and sustain demand.

This shift is already taking shape — in the way consumers behave, in how brands chase clarity, and in how data is being rebuilt from the ground up. From where I stand, after nearly two decades in the trenches of reward-led marketing, the coming year will mark the point where rewards stop being an accessory and become the operating system.

Below is what that OS will look like.

The Fall of Fuzzy Metrics And Rise Of Purchase-linked Attribution
Marketers have accepted a kind of quiet absurdity for years: spending crores on campaigns while relying on metrics that measure everything except the thing that matters — purchase.

In 2026, that tolerance collapses.

Purchase-linked rewards will give brands SKU-level, region-level and frequency-level attribution because consumers will verify themselves through action. The moment someone scans a specific pack in Indore or uploads a bill for a 3-litre bottle in Coimbatore, the attribution is no longer abstract. It’s recorded, validated and tied to a human choice.

The consequences are huge. Media plans will finally bend toward what sells, not what “performs.” A brand will know which creative drove repeat buying in Tier-3 towns. A category head will know which SKU makes the leap from trial to habit.

It’s marketing without the guesswork — something the industry has craved for decades.

Zero-party Data Becomes The Fuel, Not The Exhaust
Data used to be a by-product. Cookies collected it quietly. Platforms hoarded it. Brands rented it. Then privacy rewrote the rules, and the tap slowed to a drip. In 2026, the flow returns — but from a different source. Consumers will volunteer their data in exchange for value.

Zero-party data from reward interactions is not surveillance; it’s a handshake. It’s a parent choosing travel rewards for their family, signalling a preference. It’s a customer picking movie tickets over cashback, revealing lifestyle patterns. It’s a shopper telling a brand what they want the brand to know — and doing it willingly.

This data doesn’t need third-party validation. It comes from a moment of intent. And as reward ecosystems mature, this intent-based data becomes the engine room for product launches, regional pricing, retail negotiation, and even creative choices.

In 2026, brands won’t chase data. They’ll earn it.

Gamification Becomes A System, Not A Stunt
Gamification today thrives in high-attention moments — sporting seasons, festive cycles, cultural peaks. But attention habits are changing, and in 2026, brands will build gamification not just for moments of excitement, but for the quieter, everyday behaviours that drive long-term loyalty.

Watch how consumers interact with ecosystems they care about — gaming apps, fitness trackers, language-learning platforms. These systems are built on streaks, levels, progress markers and small wins that compound over time.

2026 is when brands will borrow that logic permanently. Points won’t expire at the end of a campaign. Tiers will represent identity, not discount slabs. Streaks will reward discipline, not just luck. A customer buying their third pack in a month will feel the same thrill as a gamer unlocking their next level.

Gamification becomes the scaffolding — a behavioural framework that gives consumers a reason to return and brands a way to shape habits. It stops being decoration and becomes infrastructure.

Rewards Stitch The Fragmented Journey Into One Value Loop
Right now the consumer journey resembles a messy group chat — scattered, overlapping, impossible to piece together. You see an ad on Instagram. You buy in a kirana store. You redeem on WhatsApp. You complain on email. You forget the brand on day seven.

Rewards change this dynamic completely. In 2026, rewards will act as the thread pulling all touchpoints into a single, coherent loop: Awareness → Action → Reward → Repeat.

A teaser in a video ad nudges you to scan the pack. The scan connects you to a personalised game. The game unlocks a streak bonus. The streak converts into a loyalty tier. The tier triggers a targeted offer.

The journey isn’t linear anymore; it’s circular. Every step reinforces the next. And the brand finally knows not just where you are, but why you’re there. This is the closest marketing has ever come to building a continuous relationship — not a series of disconnected encounters.

Experiential Rewards Eclipse Discounts
2026 will mark the quiet death of the discount-as-default. Today’s consumer knows a discount is simply a price correction dressed as generosity. It doesn’t build memory. It doesn’t build belonging. And it rarely builds loyalty. But experiences do. Travel. Entertainment. Priority access. Recognition. Rewards that feel like a story, not a transaction.

A child stepping onto a cricket field for the first time because of a brand activation. A retailer earning a learning trip that changes how they run their business. A fan receiving VIP access they’ll talk about for years.

Discounts lower the price. Experiences lift the brand. And as margins continue to tighten, brands will realise what reward-led pioneers already know: experiential rewards cost less than the loyalty they create.

The Horizon In 2026
When you zoom out, a pattern becomes clear: Rewards are no longer the prize at the end of the campaign. They are the mechanism that shapes the campaign, measures it, powers it and extends it. The brands that succeed will be those that build the systems early, test them in real markets, and refine them at scale.

For organisations that have spent years designing reward ecosystems in India — a market where complexity is the norm — the future isn’t unfamiliar. It’s simply unfolding on a bigger stage.

Reward-led marketing is the next logical step in a world where value must flow both ways.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publication.

The post How Marketing Will Shift To Reward-led Marketing In 2026 appeared first on BigCity.

Because most of them measure exposure, not effect.

Reach, impressions, and views tell you how many people saw an ad — but they say nothing about whether anyone did anything because of it. And that’s where both CFOs and CMOs get stuck.

CFOs are asking: What did this spend return?
CMOs are asking: What behaviour did this change?

Traditional sports metrics don’t answer either. In high-impact properties like cricket, ads alone rarely move the needle unless they’re paired with participation — something that gives fans a reason to engage, transact, or return. That’s the gap most sports marketing still ignores.

2. How FanForward links live sporting moments with measurable business outcomes

FanForward starts with a simple belief: attention doesn’t equal action.
Live sporting moments are powerful — but unless you layer them with rewards and participation, they remain passive.

What we do is turn those moments into reward-led journeys. A match, an over, a milestone becomes a trigger — to scan, play, earn, redeem, or purchase. Every step is captured as data. That’s how brands move from “we ran ads during the match” to “this moment drove transactions, loyalty enrolments, and repeat engagement.”

3. Tracking sales impact, revenue contribution, engagement depth, and first-party data during high-noise campaigns

High-noise events like IPL create massive visibility — but they also hide performance.

FanForward is designed to bring clarity in exactly those moments.

Brands can track:

• Sales lift at SKU, store, region, or channel level
• Revenue contribution directly linked to campaign participation
• Engagement depth — not just who clicked, but who completed journeys
• Reward redemptions and repeat behaviour
• First-party data captured with consent
• Drop-offs across the journey
• Cost per engagement, cost per transaction, and ROI per moment

The real outcome is confidence — knowing which moments, rewards, and mechanics actually worked.

4. Why 2026 could mark a shift from “brand visibility” to “performance-led sports marketing”

Because the rules are changing. Budgets are tighter. Data regulations are stricter. And marketing is now being reviewed through a CFO lens.

By 2026, sports marketing won’t be judged on how visible it was — but on how measurable it was. Ads will still matter, but they won’t stand alone. They’ll need to be paired with reward-led participation, loyalty mechanics, and first-party data capture. Brands that make this shift early will extract far more value from the same media spends.

5. How marketers can simplify execution, reduce partner fragmentation, and still scale rapidly during peak seasons

One of the biggest hidden costs in sports marketing is complexity. Multiple agencies, separate tech vendors, reward partners, fulfilment teams, reporting tools — all stitched together under pressure.

FanForward removes that fragmentation. We handle the end-to-end execution:

• Campaign tech and integrations
• Engagement journeys and gamification
• Reward catalogues and fulfilment
• Data capture and dashboards
• Compliance, ops, and reporting

For marketers, that means fewer handovers, faster launches, and the ability to scale without operational risk.

6. How this platform can assist brands in curating cricket-led campaigns that achieve desired results during the IPL and T20 tournaments

Cricket works best when brands respect how fans engage with it — emotionally and repeatedly. FanForward helps brands build cricket-led campaigns that reward participation, not just presence.

Whether it’s match-based rewards, streak-based loyalty, or tournament-long engagement journeys, brands can:

• Drive repeat participation across matches
• Incentivise purchases and actions
• Build loyalty beyond the tournament
• Capture high-quality first-party data
• Measure ROI match by match

What makes FanForward different is that it doesn’t stop at engagement. It’s designed to deliver tangible outcomes — higher conversions, measurable revenue impact, deeper loyalty, and data brands can actually reuse.

7. So what should success really be measured on?

Success shouldn’t be measured on how loud a campaign was — but on:

• How many consumers participated
• How many converted
• How much incremental revenue was driven
• How deeply fans engaged
• How much usable first-party data was captured
• And how efficiently budgets were utilised

That’s where performance-led sports marketing wins — and where FanForward is built to play.

The post Passionate in Marketing – In Conversation With Rahul Poral, Marketing Director at BigCity Promotions appeared first on BigCity.

The logic was simple: if the tools were convenient, financial discipline would follow. But convenience alone does not create consistency. Therefore we see over the years, Banking and FinTech apps have been evolving from transactional interfaces into outcome-driven engagement ecosystems – designed not just to enable actions, but to shape them.

Rahul Poral, Marketing Director at BigCity Promotions, shares insight on how the shift now underway is structural. And gamification has emerged as one of the most visible responses to this challenge.

The Difference Between Traditional Apps and How It Is Now

Traditional platforms focused on acquisition and onboarding. Once a customer downloaded the app, activated their account, or received a credit card, engagement largely depended on personal initiative.

Many customers would:

• Activate a credit card but delay first spend
• Register for UPI but rarely transact
• Open a digital savings account but maintain low activity

Modern financial institutions are rethinking this journey across four clear stages:

Acquire → Activate → Adopt → Retain

Gamification is increasingly being used as the connective tissue across this lifecycle. Instead of relying only on onboarding messages or generic cashback offers, institutions are layering structured challenges, milestones and contextual rewards across core banking actions – turning everyday transactions into habit-forming experiences.

Rather than waiting for users to return, modern platforms create guided journeys such as:

• “Complete your first three card transactions this week”
• “Maintain a 30-day UPI usage streak”
• “Unlock a milestone after activating two digital banking features”

The shift is subtle but powerful. The app no longer passively records financial activity; it actively guides usage behaviour.

Audience Shift and Impact on Young Consumers

India’s banking and fintech customer base is becoming younger and more digitally native. Reports from PwC India and industry data show increasing adoption of digital banking services across Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities, particularly among customers under 35.

This generation is accustomed to interactive app ecosystems – fitness trackers, learning platforms, gaming apps – where progress is visible and engagement is rewarded.

In comparison, static dashboards feel disengaging.

Gamified banking experiences resonate because they mirror the digital environments users already understand:

• Visual progress indicators
• Achievable short-term milestones
• Recognition of consistency
• Immediate feedback loops

For young credit card users or UPI adopters, completing a usage streak or unlocking a feature milestone can be psychologically motivating – especially in the early stages of product adoption.

The Rise of Automated Engagement in BFSI

Financial services are undergoing a broader operational shift. Manual, campaign-led reward programs are being replaced by automated engagement engines – and this shift is fundamentally reshaping how gamification is deployed.

Modern engagement platforms are designed to:

• Trigger instant, personalised rewards the moment a milestone is completed
• Recognise and reinforce streak-based behaviours automatically
• Layer time-bound boosters on spends or transaction categories dynamically
• Activate dormant users through predefined, rule-based journeys

This transforms gamification from a front-end experience into a structured behavioural system. Rather than operating as standalone promotional tools, automated gamification layers integrate directly with banking systems to orchestrate behavioural triggers in real time – whether for transaction count challenges, feature activation, spend-based gamification or ongoing knowledge loops.

The emphasis is on seamless integration, secure validation and compliance alignment – allowing institutions to scale gamified engagement across millions of users without disrupting core infrastructure.

When automation meets gamification, engagement shifts from episodic campaigns to always-on behavioural design.

What Modern Financial Gamification Looks Like

Gamification in BFSI has matured significantly. It now spans multiple use cases:

• Transaction Count Challenges: Rewarding customers for completing a defined number of digital payments within a time frame.
• Product & Feature Activation: Gamifying onboarding steps such as enabling auto-debit, activating standing instructions, setting up UPI mandates or using contactless payments.
• Engagement & Knowledge Loops: Interactive modules or quizzes that educate users about safe digital banking, card benefits or app features – reinforcing usage while improving awareness.

When designed well, these mechanisms are not superficial add-ons. They are strategically aligned to business outcomes – driving product adoption, improving usage frequency and strengthening cross-sell pathways.

The focus is on helping institutions design these layers as structured behavioural journeys rather than short-term campaigns – ensuring that each mechanic ties back to measurable outcomes across the customer lifecycle.

How Behaviour Is Actually Changing

The impact of this ecosystem approach is most visible in consistency metrics:

• Higher first-spend rates on newly issued credit cards
• Improved digital payment frequency
• Increased adoption of secondary features like auto-debit or EMI conversion
• Reduced dormancy in savings and current accounts.

More importantly, there is a psychological shift underway:

• Digital banking feels more interactive than transactional.
• Usage becomes goal-oriented rather than incidental.
• Financial activity becomes visible and trackable in real time.

Repeated, automated reinforcement helps external motivation gradually transition into internal discipline.

The Long-Term Advantage for Financial Institutions

In an increasingly competitive fintech landscape, product differentiation alone is narrowing. Most institutions offer comparable credit cards, savings accounts, UPI services and payment features.

The competitive edge now lies in behaviour design and execution capability.

Outcome-driven engagement ecosystems offer long-term advantages:

• Stronger activation and onboarding completion
• Higher transaction frequency and wallet share
• Rich first-party behavioural insights
• Greater lifetime value per customer

Critically, these systems are scalable. With seamless API-led integration and automated reward orchestration, institutions can deploy gamified journeys across millions of users without operational fragmentation.

Gamified banking ecosystems represent a shift in how digital financial discipline is built in India. When designed responsibly and aligned with regulatory frameworks, they move beyond incentives – becoming structured systems that encourage consistent, meaningful usage.

In a market where products are increasingly similar, behaviour may become the true differentiator – and structured engagement the defining advantage.

The post How Gamified Savings and Investment Apps Are Changing Financial Habits in India appeared first on BigCity.

Cricket can only be profitable from an execution perspective in cases where the brands are able to put an intent-reward behaviour, and even in the process of retaining interest both in and out of the match window. Without such layers, even the most glaring cricket campaigns do not show ROI and real business impact.

Why one-size-fits-all cricket advertising fails at an execution level

Cricket has massive audiences, but they are operationally complex. The fans differ on geography, language, team loyalty, online behaviour and intention to buy — but in most cricketing campaigns, the same problem occurs: standardised advertisement that is developed with the main objective of exposure.

This poses two clear limitations with regards to implementation. Firstly, it decreases communication. A single advertisement could not be meaningful to fans attending a regional league game, national final or last over game. Second, it waters down measurement. When a campaign is designed to be perceived alone, performance is reduced to impressions, views and number of engagements, none of which would make any differentiation on who actually took action, who made a conversion and who can be re-engaged.

Practically this solution cannot succeed because of:

• In match moments, the intent level is dissimilar in a painful way.
• The loyalties of the region and the teams influence response behaviour.
• Consumers at different stages of funnel require different triggers.

This is the reason why brands ought to participate-based campaigns in lieu of media exposure — campaigns in which fans can participate, recognise and take actions that they can monitor. This engagement is not an automatic one and should be activated. Reward-based campaigns are the best way of doing this in a high attention time-bound world like in the cricket field.

The foundation of cricket-led acquisition reasons rewards are the foundation of acquisition

Rewards give a feeling of immediacy and up-to-dateness in the most crucial moments of the match, and it is exactly at that moment that fans evidently possess a reason to move from the viewing to the participating stage. They work because they:

• Associate a brand with a match of the excitement
• Instant motivation on the basis of gratification or random results
• Take action on motivation within limited time periods

By properly-designed and scaled rewards, the brand can reposition the active engagement and acquisition of the brand with passive exposure. Above all, they allow repeat engagement to become a possibility – making cricket a one-off event as opposed to a loyalty-based system in which customers could be re-engaged many years after the match.

In this case, the capacity to perform matters. The adoption of incentive-based campaign of cricket should involve the variety of the incentives, direct gratification, discourage frauds, localisation, and more without interfering with experience.

The assessment of cricket campaigns in the current age and why that is a structural problem

The evaluation of campaigns, even though the investments in cricket are substantial, is still very far away when it comes to actual implementation.

Most brands still rely on:

• Impressions, reach and frequency
• GRPs and sponsorship visibility
• Awareness and recall study

The existence of these measures can be attributed to the fact that a majority of the cricket campaigns are not action oriented. Motivated engagement and distinguishable activity would allow the brands to be left with no other option but to report on exposure.

Execution-based evaluation is what is increasingly requested by brands:

• What was the number of fans engaged?
• What is information that has been documented and can be reused?
• Number of engagements converted to trial or transactions?
• What were better areas or groups of performance?
• Was the campaign a premise of repetitive engagement?

When the campaigns are built keeping the measurement, rewards and loyalty functionality in mind, then cricket can only be blamed.

The Future of Marketing Budgets: How by 2026 Budgets will be used more prudently.

By 2026, brands too will spend a lot of money on cricket but it will be of an alternative structure. Pure media allocation will still be supported by investments in engagement infrastructure, reward ecosystems and layers of loyalty.

Budgets of Smart 2026 Cricket will focus on:

Designing participation journeys at scale and media purchases.

• Incentives are also financed which makes you see and be able to trace the attributable behaviours
• Development of campaigns yielding first-party data that can be reused
• Relating the participation in cricket to CRM and the system of loyalty
• Reduction of the acquisition cost in the long-run through promoting repeat acquisition

Basically, cricket budgets will no longer be evaluated separately, but rather as part of a larger expansion and retention plan.

How ROI of Cricket will be measured in reality in 2026.

As the execution model matures, the ROI measure of customer economics will decisively make the move. The brands will be better monitored:

Price per participating and rewarded user.

• The cost per acquisition or qualified lead during the season.
• Involvement in the conversion of transactions.
• Cohort and geographic incremental sales lift.
• Repeat and lifetime value of cricket acquiring users.

This measurement can only be done when campaigns are established such that they can reward, track, and retain users and not only reach out to them.

Future of Cricket Engagement: Where will winning brands be different?

The three future shifts in the engagement of the brands in cricket will be marked by:

• The ads to the rewarded experiences
• The interaction will be participatory other than watching
• From reach to eelationship
• First party data and repeat engagement will be among the priorities of the brands instead of one-time visibility
• Amping to loyalty systems: Campaign thinking

Cricket does not only enhance instant marketing, but it also enhances customer engagement.

Not only instant marketing, but cricket also boosts customer engagement.

Undoubtedly, cricket is a big investment for brands and will continue to be so. Its success is largely dependent on reward-based connections, monitoring how customers behave, and turning temporary attention into long term profitability.

This is going to be the blueprint for all future campaigns for this great game.

The post How profitable is cricket advertising for brands? appeared first on BigCity.

It is important to understand and acknowledge the purchase decision-maker for any sector before finalising the marketing campaign. For example, while constructing a house, a houseowner with limited to no understanding of the housebuilding process, will not decide the cement brand. As a result, the real battleground for brand loyalty lies not in mass advertising but in building structured engagement and loyalty ecosystems with these key influencers who guide material choices across projects.

The Industry’s Influence Problem

Homeowners have little understanding or interference regarding the construction materials used. Even though people do enquire about the strength, longevity, and quality of inputs, they are often not concerned about the brand. A little-known brand can be chosen if approved or recommended by contractors, masons, painters or architects. Even dealers play a critical role in making this decision.

Construction brands do understand this intellectually, but often do not base the commercial strategy around it. Rather, the purchase decisions are often built around dealer margins, volume rebates and reward transactions and not relationships. There are incentive schemes and seasonal gift hampers which have a very short-term impact on creating loyalty and long-term relationships.

These are not engagement strategies. They are transactions, and transactions don’t build lasting loyalty. Structured loyalty programs are increasingly relevant in the construction ecosystem. Many brands now use engagement platforms for contractors, dealers, and other influencers, rewarding verified usage and encouraging long-term relationships beyond transactional incentives. These programs have a long-term view rather than focusing on stimulating sales for a particular market in the shorter period.

What Loyalty Actually Means in This Category

In the construction industry, let us understand the concept of loyalty, as it differs from that in other sectors. For example, if a contractor chooses a brand’s product because of its quality, a low complaint ratio, and trust in the brand, such loyalty is worth more than any volume rebate offered.

Companies also seek assistance from construction influencers, and in most markets, the top 20% of contractors and dealers drive the majority of project volumes. Rewards should be based on verified and consistent behaviour, not on broad participation. The benefits should go beyond offering cash and can include tools, training, insurance, and recognition events that affirm professional expertise rather than simply padding margins. Also tiered structures like bronze, silver and gold levels should be there to allow influencers to stay engaged for a long period of time and not just during a promotion.

When such exercises are done right, the result isn’t a database of enrolled users. It’s a network of people who sell your brand for you, every single day, without you in the room.

The Data Problem Nobody Talks About

Another critical aspect often missed out by the decision-makers is related to the poor visibility of construction companies in the core markets. Primary sales data flows through distributors. Feedback arrives weeks late and pre-filtered. By the time a brand realises a competitor is gaining ground in a particular region, the relationship is already half-built.

This is where structured loyalty platforms and influencer engagement systems can play a critical role in resolving the longstanding issue. With each verified transaction and claimed reward, it is possible to keep a record of each point of engagement. A company can have clear visibility (and data) related to:

· High-value influencers driving disproportionate volumes across projects

· Emerging construction clusters before they appear in official statistics

· Dealer networks that are underperforming and need intervention

· Regions where competitors are quietly gaining share

This reflects real behaviour, in real time, from the people actually making decisions. The brands that figure this out will have a structural information advantage that compounds over time.

Where the Real Opportunities Sit

The construction value chain is quite different from other sectors, and it cannot be considered as a single market but a series of influence moments, each with a unique decision-maker and entry point.

· Contractors and builders are the highest-leverage starting point. A single mid-sized contractor would be responsible for the purchase decision on construction materials, which could be worth crores of rupees in a single month, given that he is working on 5-6 projects at a time.

· Dealers and retailers are where intent converts to purchase. There might be some impact of a brand and preferences, but those can be easily changed on the counter. Dealer programs focusing on growth and knowledge can create an environment where your brand gets the first recommendation.

· Architects and specifiers work upstream, during design and planning, before procurement is even a conversation. It is important to reach out to these professionals as it will help your brand gain leverage over the others during the planning phase of a construction project. 

· Homebuyers and end customers are the most underestimated layer. For developers and housing finance companies, the relationship shouldn’t end at possession or disbursement. Any homebuyer or end customer with some experience in building or renovating a house will play a critical role in finalising the purchase decision.

The Strategic Takeaway

Construction brands have traditionally treated loyalty programs as short-term promotional tools. However, when designed as structured ecosystems that connect contractors, dealers, architects, and end-users, these programs can become powerful long-term growth strategies. As the construction industry’s value chain is unique, using structured influencer engagement networks can be a real game-changer.

Companies can target stronger contract and dealer loyalty that survives competitive rivalry, especially around pricing. It can also lead to higher repeat purchases across different projects and to improved brand recommendations.

The brands that win in construction markets will be those that influence decisions where they actually happen, on construction sites and inside dealer stores. Building that influence takes time, structure and consistency. But the brands that start now will be very difficult to displace later.

The post Building Loyalty Ecosystems Across the Construction Value Chain: Cement, Paint, Tiles & Home Finance appeared first on BigCity.