For a long time the way to launch a brand in India was really simple. You would hire an agency in South Mumbai or South Delhi. They would make a commercial with models who looked a bit like they were from Europe. You would put a slogan on it in English buy ad time on English news channels and take out big ads in national English newspapers.
If you had some money left you would translate the ad into Hindi or Tamil. The translation would be really bad and would sound like it was from a boring textbook. You would then show this ad in the “markets.
This way of doing things actually worked. The people who were buying things were a group of rich people who spoke English and lived in big cities. They had a lot of money. Decided what was popular. Advertising in English was not about the language it was also about showing that you had money.
That time is over now.
The internet in India did not just get bigger it also changed. The next 200 million people using the internet are not typing in English. They are not looking at English Twitter. Reading old English newspapers. They are watching videos listening to music and reading things in their languages like Marathi, Telugu, Bhojpuri and Bengali. They live in cities like Indore, Salem, Thrissur and Siliguri.. They have money to spend but they only like brands that speak to them in their own language and do not look down on them.
The advertising industry calls this “vernacular content”. Really it is just that the Indian consumer market is becoming more equal. Brands that think advertising in languages than English is not important are not just missing out on growth they are also becoming irrelevant.
Fighting over the 50 million people in big cities is a losing game.
We have a habit of looking at Indias internet like it is a Western country. We see that a lot of people have smartphones and use a lot of data and we think it is all one market.. It is not. Than 12% of people in India speak English but they used to get most of the money spent on digital ads. This meant that advertisers were spending a lot of money to reach the people in big cities and ignoring the 500 million people who wanted content in their own languages.
This is not about people not understanding English. Many people in cities can read English ads just fine. The problem is that English does not feel personal or trustworthy. In India English is the language of things like business and government. When you want to sell something to a shop owner in Gorakhpur using English makes it seem like you are not from there. Using language and idioms helps build trust.
A literal Google translation will make your brand look ridiculous
The biggest mistake brands make when trying to advertise in languages is that they just translate their English ads. They take an ad translate the words and expect it to work.. It does not. For example the word “cool” in English means fashionable and modern.. If you translate it to Hindi as “thanda” it means cold like a refrigerator.
Vernacular advertising needs to understand the local culture, not just translate words. What is funny or normal in one place can be very different in another. Look at how local news and video appsre becoming popular. They did not win by having video quality than big global companies. They won because they understood what local people wanted to watch.
A local person from Nagpur is more influential than a celebrity.
The time of having one celebrity to advertise your brand is over. Now it is about local influencers. For a time launching a new product meant paying a lot of money to a famous Bollywood star or cricket player. That is not the best way to get people to actually buy your product.
Now a person from Nagpur who has 100,000 followers on media can be more effective at selling your product in their region than a big celebrity. They speak the language use the local accent and understand the local problems. When they recommend a product people trust them like they would a friend. It can be hard for advertisers to work with local influencers but it is worth it.
Keyboards are hostile to Indian scripts, so voice and video won
This shift to languages is not just about culture it is also about how people use the internet. With mobile data and smartphones India has become a place where people prefer to watch videos and use voice commands. If you watch someone using the internet for the time in a small town they rarely type on the keyboard. Typing is mostly a thing. Keyboards are not very good for languages so people use voice search and video instead.
This has changed the way marketing works. If your brand only uses written keywords you will not be seen by many people who use voice commands in their own languages.. Luckily the advertising technology has caught up. Now ads can be targeted to people in real-time using local languages and videos.
English is becoming the alternative strategy, vernacular is the core
We are in a time where big companies are changing how they spend their money on marketing. They are moving away from advertising in big cities and are focusing on smaller towns. How more subscriptions or premium coffee brands can you sell to a software engineer, in Gurgaon? The competition is fierce. It is very expensive.
In smaller towns there is a lot of economic growth happening. People have money they have aspirations. They want to be advertised to in their own languages. The brands that will win in the decade are the ones that make vernacular languages their main strategy, not just something they do on the side.
The Main Insights Take
The math just does not work for the way of doing things in the city first. To do well in the wave of economic growth in India advertisers have to face three hard truths. First people like things that’re real and honest so a simple video that uses the right local language is better than a fancy commercial made in Mumbai. This is because a simple video with the language makes people feel safe when they buy things.
Second the people that others trust have changed. Now people trust creators who live near them not famous Bollywood stars who are far away.
Finally a company can grow really big if it uses languages. If your company only uses English and people have to figure out what you mean then you are limiting how big your company can get. You will only be able to sell to twelve percent of people, in India which is a very big country.
