Diwali is considered to be an auspicious time by Indians to bring home new products and appliances, thus leading the advertising for these categories to escalate during the festive season. Let's see if there is a particular one, which stands out though. A look at the duration trend of six categories- air conditioners, television, music systems, refrigerators, VCR/ VCP/VCD/DVD/ home theatre and washing machines shows almost all categories (except air conditioners) peaking in the month of October, which is obvious because of the festive season.

The noticeable fact is the phenomenal jump of total duration of the television category from September to October. The jump cannot be rivalled even by the February peak, which was because of the World Cup fever. Seasonal categories like refrigerators/ air conditioners prefer to climb up the duration chart as the mercury rises.

The duration trend for television category individually from the year 2000 also shows that this category invariably crests during the festive months of October, but October 2003 was a different story altogether.

Drilling more into the advertising patterns of these categories, we come to the channels preferred by each individual category. Washing machines and refrigerators, two necessities of a woman's domain, are more advertised on Hindi entertainment and regional channels- whose major target group is the female viewer. Whereas, the categories like television and air conditioners are more advertised on news channels and English entertainment channels, which are more preferred by men. Advertisers for music systems essentially choose music channels as the ideal platform to advertise their goodies to the viewers.