GIVA’s Raksha Bandhan campaign sparks debate over festival representation

Jewellery brand GIVA’s Raksha Bandhan campaign featuring actor Kriti Sanon drew criticism over its Indo-Western styling and pet-focused storytelling. Sanon defended the creative, positioning festivals as expressions of relationships and emotion rather than prescribed attire.

— Source publishedTue, 25 Aug, 2026, 16:34 IST·First seen Tue, 25 Aug, 2026, 18:09 IST·Source NDTV Profit

What happened

Jewellery brand GIVA’s Raksha Bandhan campaign featuring Kriti Sanon drew criticism from Kangana Ranaut over its Indo-Western styling and pet-focused sequence.

Why this matters

For potential partners or targets in jewellery and lifestyle retail, assess festive-marketing governance and cultural-insight capabilities as material indicators of brand resilience.

What to watch

  • Whether criticism sustains beyond the initial social cycle or is picked up by major news outlets, political voices or organized boycott accounts.
  • GIVA's engagement, search interest, site traffic and conversion trends versus prior Raksha Bandhan campaign periods.
  • Any campaign edits, apology, comment moderation change or follow-up content from GIVA or Kriti Sanon.
  • Competitor creative briefs that explicitly foreground tradition, rituals, family approval or Indian craftsmanship.
  • Consumer sentiment splits between younger metropolitan buyers and more tradition-oriented regional audiences.
  • GIVA is likely to reiterate that its festive campaigns celebrate evolving relationships while selectively publishing behind-the-scenes or founder/celebrity context to soften criticism.
  • Competing jewellery brands may emphasize traditional sibling rituals and ethnic styling in upcoming Raksha Bandhan messaging to position themselves as culturally familiar alternatives.
  • Marketing teams will segment festive creative by platform and geography, pairing contemporary digital films with more conventional retail, marketplace and regional-language assets.
  • Celebrity-led campaigns will face closer monitoring of comment sentiment, creator reactions and boycott-language velocity during the first 24 to 48 hours after launch.