Having English-only approach in digital communication will be myopic: Sanjay Tripathy, HDFC Life

The digital age has provided brands with a cost effective way to reach people at mass as well as to target specific cateogries of people. For example, where at one time, a brand would have to take the expensive route of regional television to target regional language speakers, it is much easier to and cheaper to do this through digital media. However, the content becomes important as it must not lose its relevance. Sudip Ghose, VP (Marketing) at VIP Industries, spoke to us about the importance of having the right content strategy while targeting vernacular language speakers.

Can you give us a glimpse of your strategy when it comes to using digital vernacular medium to target audiences across geographies?
This is an age where everybody is connected to and uses the internet. There is a large chunk of people who consume and experience content through this medium. Being a mass market brand with a number of different sub-brands we generate various type of digital content. The way we distribute it also depends on the audience. For example, a lot of people go to YouTube to watch music videos so a pre-roll add might make sense there. There is a pattern to media usage by audiences and we create media plans for certain type of content.

How important has this medium become as part of your activities?
It depends from sub-brand to sub-brand. So, for example, for Alfa, we do a lot of stuff since we do not want to miss out on anything. However, the thing is that you cannot just use digital. It works best as a compliment to traditional media.

Going forward, what is the roadmap with regards to digital vernacular content?
This is very brand specific. For Alfa, it will be very low since it is a premium brand but we will do a lot for brands like SkyBags. Each brand will have their own strategy.

What are they typical obstacles that one faces when partnering with or creating regional content online?
It is important to have content that has universal appeal. That is my main aim. If you start creating different content for each and every category then you will be in trouble.

Online classifieds platform, Quikr, recently announced a big push in the vernacular language domain, with vernacular language support for consumers accessing Quikr's platform. Quikr now allows consumers to choose from seven different languages– Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati and Marathi to browse as well as post ads in. We asked Vineet Sehgal, CMO of Quikr about his thoughts on how brands can target the vernacular language target audience. Excerpts.

Can you give us a glimpse of your strategy when it comes to using digital vernacular medium to target audiences across geographies?
Currently, consumption of regional content is higher in more traditional media such as TV and print, digital media is still catching up. Regional digital content is in the early stages of its adoption and we are also beginning to experiment with the digital vernacular medium. For example, we target specific regional/ vernacular audiences on YouTube for our TV campaigns which are translated into regional languages.

 We also currently offer regional language support on our platform as a matter of hygiene. In December last year we launched vernacular language support for our consumers allowing them to choose from seven languages– Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Malayalam, Gujarati and Marathi to browse as well as post ads in. Based on consumer’s geographic location our platform also offers language suggestions.

How important has this medium become as part of your activities?
Most of our communication especially offline is translated into key vernacular languages be it TVC, print, radio, outdoor or on ground activities.

Going forward, what is the roadmap with regards to digital vernacular content?
Our platform caters to consumers across 1,000 cities and towns in India and we believe we have many more places to go, especially with Tier 2 and Tier 3 markets. The vernacular language support will give these efforts a big push and we plan to add more languages to the platform.

Can you give us an example of any past activity that you have done?
Almost all of our campaigns are multi-lingual and are run in regional languages across channels.

What are they typical obstacles that one faces when partnering with or creating regional content online?
The diversity of India’s lingual landscape is a challenge in itself irrespective of the medium one chooses over the other.

Last year, with its “More Indian Than You Think” campaign, Lufthansa India tightened focus on vernacular, and first-time travelers. One would perhaps not expect a brand like Lufthansa to target the non-English speaking demographic, but as Sangeeta Sharma, Manager (Marketing & Communications) at Lufthansa Passenger Airlines South Asia, told us, the vernacular media is becoming increasingly important. Excerpts:

Digital media is opening up the ecosystem to a whole new audience, many of which consumer content neither in English or Hindi. How is Lufthansa targeting this particular segment of audience?

We have come a long way from where we were 5-10 years ago. Earlier, all our creatives used to come from our head office in Frankfurt, but we found that people abroad have different perspectives about the country.

So, when you look nowadays, we have TVCs in Gujarati. The “More Indian Than You Think” campaign we did last year further helped us understand the nuances of the country. We have a microsite in 5 different languages. Also, with digital advertising we are experimenting with both English and vernacular banners on vernacular media as well as on English media. I think going forward this is going to be the road we are increasingly going to take.

Would you say that advertising in vernacular languages has become strategically more important, especially on digital?

There lots of people who consumer vernacular content, but English is still most important for us. To give an example, if I want to advertise to business class flyers then perhaps both (languages) would be consumed equally. But, if I have a different target group then maybe it will be more of vernacular.

It is a very important medium and demographic for us since our target group is present everywhere. For example, Gujarat and Chennai are key areas for us. It is a completely basic insight—if you want to get deeper in the user group, then you need to do it. We are doing translations for strategic brand campaigns. Perhaps for tactical, short term campaigns we might not go vernacular.

Tell us about the global #DiwaliSurprise campaign that was recently rolled out.
From a strategic point of view, it was an extension of a campaign we launched last year—More Indian Than You Think. Innovation is the key to any brand. Every year around October-December we sit down to discuss where we are this year and what are the key ideas for next year.

The campaign was conceived and seeded by Lufthansa India, it has been rolled-out simultaneously across 80 countries and expects a participation of 1 million Indians worldwide. Celebrating the spirit of love and togetherness, the #Diwalisurprise campaign gives participants a chance to unite with their loved ones by registering their “wish” and getting a chance to win tickets for Lufthansa flights.

We created a Facebook page 5 years ago for India. We have started a YouTube channel this year. Right now, there are only two countries, including India, that have their own social media channels and pages.

So how are you reaching out to the non-English speaking audience for this particular campaign?

So, with the earlier ‘More Indian Than You Think’ we were reaching out to new or first time travelers. We do this in a variety of ways. One way is to send corresponding messaging on digital (after launching a TVC).

The digital domain need not necessarily only be of use to reach English speaking audiences. As more and more of the Indian hinterland gets access online, brands are increasingly looking to regional and vernacular language content to connect with customers. Manav Sethi, Group Head (Marketing), Head(Digital Strategy) and Business Head for AskMe Deals & Classified, speaks about how AskMe approaches this section of the digital ecosystem. Excerpts:

How do you approach the vernacular language speaking audiences on the digital medium and what has the impact been so far?

As far as regional languages are concerned the creatives are all created in-house and we have seen a huge uptake in the CTR of these creatives. We also create videos that specifically target the non- SSN and non-English speaking segment.
All our TV commercials are created in four languages—Tamil, Kannada, Telgu and Malyalam. So we have master creatives that are made internally. We work with JWT and these are then updated to other languages.

For example, when we did a campaign to promote Next Day Delivery (NDD), we did the campaign in 6 different languages for different states.

Would you say that this particular demographic has become significant for brands?

Yes, this is a very important segment. If you consider all consumer insights from both search and transactions, the consumption is skewing towards non-Hindi and non-English audiences. This is what is driving us to create more content for this segment.

Could you give us some examples of how you are approaching this matter?

There are a lot of things we are doing. For example, we are in the process of signing a celeb for an exclusive campaign down south. For us, these markets are very important but we are also cognizant of the fact that though the audiences might prefer to get communications in their regional language, in the end they will be using English as the language to interact with us on our website or app.

But it is important to be able to speak the language of your consumer. We are the only e-commerce partner for the South Indian International Movie Awards (SIIMA). Our integrations included creating a co-branded page where the entire South Indian market could come and vote for their favourite movie stars.

What are the opportunities and challenges that a brand faces while targeting this particular segment?

Categories like Classifieds and Deals is where we have seen humongous uptake when we do regional language creatives. Whenever you are speaking to the lowest common dominator in your consumer base, we have seen that the regional language is more efficacious than Hindi or English. In India, we have to still acquire the scale when it comes the people who are digitally connected. We have to bridge this gap through technology enablement from device and infrastructure side.
One thing we have seen is that we get unique consumer insights from the voice channel, which is why though we have a website, an app and a mobile site, we have still kept this channel open. This could be because for a large section of people input in English is a problem.