Beyond English ‘culture communication’

When Hero Puch moped failed to kickstart in Andhra Pradesh, it puzzled the pundits. When the tetrapak drink Appy didn’t cut much ice in Kerala, experts were quite befuddled. ‘Language au-dit’ specialists would have explained that the consumers in these states were never really going to be thrilled — as ‘Puch’ means an intimate part of the female anatomy; while Appy means human faeces in the respective south Indian languages.

In India, there is a wide chasm as the ‘movers & shakers’ think and dream in English, whereas more than 60-70 per cent of the target audience prefers other languages. The duality gets amplified as marketers tap rural India. Two ‘multi-lingual’ advertising creative personnel — L. N. Baijal (a veteran Hindi copywriter originally from Uttar Pradesh) and Vijay Kumar (a South Indian copywriter working in Mumbai) have conceptualised an idea whose time has come: BeyondEnglish Communications.

Baijal, who has over 30 years of experience in Hindi language co-ordination, says, “The industry realised the importance of language transcreation (as against plain vanilla translation) as well as the need for examining cultural connotations of literal translations long back. Piyush Pandey and Prasoon Joshi have changed the perception of Hindi but what about the several other languages in India? Not many industry people are thinking about it even today.” Baijal has been involved in ‘original language thinking’ for campaigns such as ‘Toofani Thanda’ for ‘Taste the Thunder’ (Thums Up), Dinshaw Ice Creams and ‘Swast Khao, Tan Man Jagao’ for ‘Eat Healthy, Think Better’ (Britannia).

His partner, Kumar adds, “The time for culture communication has finally arrived. Slowly but surely, the seeds of original thinking in languages have been sown. While the shift towards original Hindi took decades, other languages needn’t go through the same hibernation period especially when there is an increasing awareness to go back to the roots, speak from the heart and appeal through the local idiom.”

To read the entire story, grab your copy of Impact Advertising and Weekly magazine issue dated April 25-May 1, 2005