As India enters the festive season, luxury automobile brands are navigating a market where heightened consumer attention comes with a unique set of challenges. For Audi India, the festive period is not simply about driving short-term sales through offers and discounts, but about strengthening brand desirability, creating deeper customer connections and building long-term loyalty.
Speaking to Brand Communion as part of BrandCommunion’s Festive Dialogues, Gaurav Sinha, Head of Marketing and PR, Audi India, said the brand approaches the festive season as a “360-degree brand initiative” rather than a sales-led campaign.
“We are not just in the business of horsepower. We are in the business of goosebumps,” Sinha said, highlighting Audi’s focus on emotional storytelling and customer engagement during the festive period.
According to Sinha, Audi’s festive strategy works across the marketing funnel from building awareness and desirability to generating qualified leads, test drives and, ultimately, sales.
However, the objective extends beyond immediate conversions, with the brand looking to create more customer stories, interactions and meaningful connections.
Digital leads, but Audi continues to invest in targeted print and CTV
While Audi operates with a relatively niche media universe compared with mass-market FMCG and technology brands, Sinha said the brand's strategy is built around being present wherever its customers are.
Digital continues to account for a significant part of Audi India’s media strategy, spanning social media, connected TV, digital out-of-home and influencer-led storytelling. The brand also works with micro-influencers and category-specific voices who bring credibility and access to targeted communities.
Celebrities, meanwhile, are used selectively when their reach can help Audi break through the festive clutter.
Sinha said Audi does not follow a “one-size-fits-all” media strategy and instead looks to “follow the customer” across channels.
While he refrained from sharing an exact media split, Sinha said targeted print continues to play an important role for the luxury carmaker, despite the broader industry conversation around declining print consumption.
“For us, print also plays a very important role, especially when it is very targeted and sharply targeted at a particular customer cohort,” he said.
The medium is used not only for product launches but also for brand-building initiatives. Sinha cited Audi’s recent ‘CRO Feeling’ campaign, which appeared across print, digital out-of-home and conventional outdoor formats without featuring a car.
The campaign used imagery of terrains where Audi cars could be driven, accompanied by the Audi logo and a single line of communication, reinforcing the brand’s larger storytelling approach.
CTV offers Audi access to targeted affluent households
Connected TV is another emerging medium that Audi is increasingly exploring. While Sinha acknowledged that measurement remains a challenge, he believes CTV's ability to target affluent households makes it particularly relevant for a luxury brand.
According to him, connected TV allows brands to identify and target households based on factors such as the size and type of screens being used, providing an additional layer of audience targeting.
For Audi, the value of CTV is not limited to immediate sales attribution. Sinha said top-of-the-funnel brand salience is particularly important for luxury brands, making targeted connected TV a relevant platform for building awareness and desirability.
Audi takes a selective approach to celebrity partnerships
Sinha also spoke about Audi India’s approach to celebrity associations, particularly during the highly cluttered festive period.
Rather than partnering with celebrities purely for reach, Audi looks for individuals who have a genuine affinity for the brand and whose personal achievements and values align with Audi.
Sinha said the brand has been associated with only a “handful” of individuals over its nearly two-decade presence in India, referring to them as “Friends of Audi”.
The partnership, he explained, is based on a “meeting of minds” and shared philosophies around achievement and excellence.
Audi’s association with Indian javelin thrower Neeraj Chopra is a case in point. Sinha said Chopra’s knowledge of Audi extends well beyond a typical celebrity endorsement, with the athlete being able to discuss the brand’s engines, transmissions, variants and model history.
“This love comes from within,” Sinha said, emphasising that genuine brand affinity is more valuable to Audi than a transactional celebrity relationship.
With celebrity-led advertising becoming increasingly common during the festive period, Sinha indicated that Audi would instead lean on the strength and distinctiveness of its brand to stand out.
EV strategy focuses on the ecosystem, not just products
The conversation also touched upon the growing premium EV market in India. Sinha said Audi sees significant potential for electric mobility but believes that the industry's immediate challenge is not simply introducing more products, but addressing consumer concerns around the EV ownership ecosystem.
Charging infrastructure, range, safety and ownership experience remain areas where consumer misinformation and anxiety persist, he said.
Audi is therefore focusing on educating customers and building an ecosystem around EV ownership. Sinha highlighted the myAudi app, which allows users to access multiple charging stations and make payments through a single platform rather than relying on separate applications for different charging operators.
“We just don't want to send him an electric car. We want to make sure his owning of electric in his journey of ownership becomes easy,” Sinha said.
He added that Audi’s approach is driven by the high level of loyalty within its existing customer base. According to Sinha, one in every three Audi customers is an existing Audi buyer, creating a responsibility for the brand to make the overall ownership journey more seamless.
New product pipeline to target distinct customer cohorts
Audi India is also entering a significant phase with a refreshed product pipeline, including the Q3, A5, and Q9.
Sinha said the three models will be positioned differently, catering to distinct customer segments.
The Q3 will target younger affluent CXOs and achievers, while the A5 will represent Audi’s design-led sedan proposition. The Q9, positioned as the brand’s flagship SUV, will cater to customers at the top end of the luxury pyramid.
While existing Audi customers will remain an important audience for the new products, the brand will also target new customer cohorts through differentiated positioning and marketing strategies.
For the upcoming festive season, however, Audi’s immediate focus will be on one new model, which Sinha said has not yet been officially announced. The other two products are expected to arrive next year.
Sinha said communication around the upcoming model will begin shortly, making the festive period an important moment for Audi India to combine product excitement with its broader brand-building agenda.
For Audi India, therefore, the festive season is less about competing on discounts and more about competing for attention, aspiration and emotional relevance, reinforcing the idea that in the luxury category, the strongest conversion may begin long before a customer walks into a showroom.
