According to a joint study released on August 12, 2026, by GWI and Snap Inc. titled Diwali & the Festive Season in India, seven in ten Gen Z internet users rely on creator content for product discovery during festive periods, yet 76% state that instant feedback from trusted peers is what ultimately determines their purchases.
The Attribution Gap in Private Messaging Infrastructure
For brands and performance marketers operating in India, the GWI and Snap Inc. research draws a sharp structural line between discovery and conversion. While creators successfully inject products into the top of the funnel, 63% of the 1,008 Gen Z respondents surveyed in June 2026 share products with friends or family before completing a transaction. Last-click attribution models, which rely on tracking pixels and open web telemetry, systematically miss the conversion leg of this journey because the critical validation occurs inside direct messages and private group chats.
“For brands, that’s a meaningful shift in where and how they need to show up,” said Jason Mander, Chief Insight Officer at GWI, highlighting how closed communication architectures obscure the final push to purchase.
As Tech Times noted in its coverage of the same data, this is not a data quality problem that better tagging or improved cookie matching can solve. It is an architectural property of private messaging platforms where tracking pixels cannot tread. When a consumer receives a reply of “yes, buy it” in an encrypted chat, the preceding creator-driven discovery chain receives zero attribution credit under standard last-click frameworks.
Beyond Diwali: Reengineering the Festive Activation Calendar
The temporal dynamics of the festive season have also fundamentally changed. Rather than concentrating exclusively on a single shopping peak around Diwali, 70% of Gen Z respondents describe the festive season as a series of multiple celebrations. This broader calendar encompasses Rakhi, Friendship Day, Onam, Durga Pujo, and Karva Chauth, each generating distinct pockets of gifting intent.
Nearly four in ten Gen Z consumers begin mapping out their Diwali purchases more than a month in advance. At the same time, spontaneity remains a core driver of volume:
- 41% describe their festive purchases as mostly planned ahead of time.
- 40% mix advance planning with impulsive, spontaneous buying.
- 75% of Gen Z Daily Snapchatters chat with friends about basket items while shopping.
As MediaBrief reported from the GWI-Snapchat findings, this mixed behavioral pattern means media strategies must abandon the traditional two-week pre-Diwali blitz. Brands that exit the conversation before the final purchase window miss the spontaneous buyers, while those invisible a month prior miss the planners entirely.
The New Battleground for Brand Confidence
According to the research, 67% of Gen Z Daily Snapchatters agree that messaging platforms help them feel confident in their purchase choices during the festive season.
Four in ten Gen Z shoppers actively seek out opinions or advice from their inner circle, turning private messaging threads into virtual fitting rooms.
