With Indian consumers tightening their purse string, marketers too have cut down on their advertising expenditure. In fact, with the festive season being around the corner which usually is a time when marketers up their ad spend, this time it’s more of a cautious approach. According to industry estimates, retailers reported a 10% - 15% drop in sale during this year’s monsoon when compared with last year.For retailers like Lifestyle International overall like-to-like growth has been flat, Vasanth Kumar , MD, Lifestyle International Pvt Ltd told BE. “Ad spend accounts for three percent of the turnover during the festive season. This year, there is no plans to increase the budget. Given the present situation of the economy we will have to watch out if demand picks up as per our expectations during this festive season,” Kumar added.Consumer durable too has seen its share of slump. Sales dipped anywhere between 10%-15% between July-August, this year, when compared to same period last year.“Demand continues to remain soft. As a matter of even ICC Cricket World Cup didn’t help in increasing the sale of TV,” Nilesh Gupta, managing partner, Vijay Sales, said.Add to this, the fact that in the last one year too many shopping centres or malls have been built in the same catchment. This has led to cannibalisation.Gupta however, expects sales to improve by 8% to 10% during the festive season compared to last year, on the back of targeted advertising. “Brands and retailers are likely to get better deals for ads due to lower rates. This also means that one can expect the quantum of ads to increase even as ad spends remain flat. Brands are likely to get bigger space in print besides TV and streaming platform,” he explained.A recent report by MediaCom indicated that despite a slump in consumer spending and slowdown, festive advertising is expected to grow at 10-12% over 2018 to Rs 20,000 crore this year.According to Anil Talreja, partner, Deloitte, with sales not increasing, brands have been struggling for the last few quarters. “Also, customers are now accustomed to the GST rates which played a dampener in the last couple of years as prices of goods above Rs 1,000 increased by around 3 to 4%. All that is settled so things should improve around the festive season this year,” he said.Meanwhile, electronic goods retailer Croma, run by the Tata group owned Infiniti Retail, plans to up its ad spends due to opening of new stores. “Overall spends will be higher as there are 37 additional stores this year compared to a year before. At present, there are 137 stores operational across the country. Last year we had 100 stores,” Ritesh Ghoshal, chief marketing officer, Infiniti Retail, said.As per Kavindra Mishra, CEO and MD, Pepe Jeans India, the company has laid out a strong festive season campaign plan as it will spending higher than last year on advertising.Moreover, e-commerce firms too are expected to release an advertising blitzkrieg. “This year we will be spending more than double the amount we spent last year on digital advertising. The higher spend is on a different mix of categories and channels compared to last year. Last festive season, we spent mostly on keyword ads and display ads on social media,” Mansi Gupta, CEO and co-founder Tjori, said.As companies gear up for festive season, it is the consumer who will benefit this year, thanks to raining discounts.