Mirchi's new ad campaign nudges marketers to speak the language of India

Titled 'Proudly Local', the ads are in Chinese and Korean languages, on purpose.

Mirchi, India’s no. 1 city-centric music and entertainment company, has launched a campaign, titled 'Proudly Local', to build awareness around and underline the importance of being massively multi-local amongst brands and marketers.

According to the last government census (2011), over 500 million people in India don't speak Hindi and over a billion people don't speak English. Thus, through this campaign, Mirchi aims to create awareness about India’s linguistic diversity and the need for brands to communicate with the locals, in their language.

In order to truly connect with their audience, brands must integrate local language, insights and nuances in their communication across platforms, like radio, print, digital and social media.

To highlight and demonstrate this, Mirchi took to print and digital formats, releasing 12 advertisements across three cities, in foreign languages, like Chinese, Korean and Amharic (an Ethiopian Semitic language). This was cheekily done to put marketers in the shoes of local consumers, who don't connect with the Hindi or English marketing initiatives targeted towards them.

Through these unique, incomprehensible ad copies, Mirchi aims to pique the interest of marketers across India. To satiate their intrigue and help them join the dots, the brand redirects them to the microsite, which highlights the diversity of India’s lingual ecosystem and the need for multi-localisation.

Moreover, it also provides access to a white paper on 'Marketing to the real India in post-pandemic times'. It delves into the intricacies of strategising for Indian markets in the new normal, shares case studies and provides an understanding of impactful hyperlocal solutions.

Talking about the campaign, Nandan Srinath, executive president, Mirchi, said, “We are the largest hyperlocal music and entertainment brand in the country. Over the years, we have grown to cater to numerous markets within India, in their local language, through a multitude of our offerings, radio, digital content, original content and on-ground activations. We understand the importance of speaking in the consumers’ language and the power it holds to connect with them.”

“Thus, through the launch of our campaign, 'Proudly Local', we want to create awareness about not just the language barriers that are still prevalent in the marketing community, but also the need to examine local nuance and insights, as well as knowledge, mediums and action. Our client’s brands perform differently in each of their markets, and we help craft solutions across multiple media based on our teams’ local insights.”

Throughout the course of the campaign, Mirchi aims to share its insights, platforms, content, and other curations with brands across India to help them connect and engage with their target audience.