Every year the brief arrives a few weeks before Diwali, and the festival does not move. Trade coverage this season says the same thing from the other side: exchange4media’s headline put it as “Diwali was once the brief, now Q4 itself is the campaign.” The brands that feel calm are the ones who plan backwards.

One festival, many films

MediaNews4U’s round-up of Diwali 2026 campaigns shows how varied the work is: Asian Paints’ musical film “Taiyyari Shuru, Tyohaar Shuru”, boAt’s “Upgrade to boAt” series, Supertails’ “No Bang Diwali” on Instagram, and ORRA’s “Truly Hers” running across digital, OTT, connected TV and cinema. Different lengths, platforms and tones, all for the same moment.

A backwards calendar

Start from the launch date and count back. Here is a typical shape; yours will vary with the number of languages and cutdowns.

Six to five weeks before: brief, insight and script. Four to three weeks: character and look frames approved as images, then keyframes. Two weeks: the master film locked and the cutdowns made in each format. One week: language and offer variants ready, with approvals done. Launch week: a buffer for late changes.

Build a family, not a single film

Festive work performs best as a family: a hero film, short cutdowns for social, and variants for each stage of the season, from pre-festival build-up to gifting and the wedding season that follows. Planning the family at the brief stage costs less than adding to it later.

Keep the late changes light

Offers, prices and stock change late. We design offer lines, price tags and end cards as swappable layers, so a change of offer is an edit, not a re-make. Our 72-hour pipeline exists for exactly the moment when a new city or a new offer needs its own version.

If you have a festive launch coming, write to namaste@teevra.co with the date, and we will build the calendar backwards from it.