Brands frequently develop unique ritualistic elements in product creation and consumption scenarios to boost sales performance. Investigating how to enhance consumers’ ritualistic consumption thus holds crucial marketing implications. While businesses extensively utilize busyness symbols in ritual-based marketing campaigns, an essential question remains unanswered: Can perceived busyness motivate consumers to allocate additional time to non-utilitarian ritualistic consumption? This study systematically examines the impact of consumers’ subjective busyness on ritualistic consumption preferences. Through four experiments, we empirically demonstrate that heightened subjective busyness significantly elevates individuals’ preference for ritualistic consumption. Mechanistically, this effect arises because subjective busyness enhances consumers’ motivation for subjective vitality, which consequently promotes ritualistic consumption. In addition, the above effects are moderated by the beginning temporal landmark, with the positive impact of subjective busyness on ritualistic consumption preference being weaker when primed with beginning landmarks compared with control conditions. This study not only helps to broaden the antecedent research on ritualistic consumption, expands the theoretical mechanism of subjective busyness, but also provides managerial implications for the application of busyness elements and the implementation of brand ritual practices.