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Is there life beyond English?Hindi and regional languages seem to be gaining acceptance in therazzmatazz world of advertising thanks to a new crop of creative

directors who have written successful and award wining campaigns.Against this backdrop, votaries of languages are sating it s timetranscreation is taken seriously. !ill the adworld buy it?

!hen "ivek #beroi e$claims % Wakaw! % for his favourite brand of cola,&arhwalis try to stave off the nausea. 'he peppy slogan is synonymous to re(gurgitation in their language. )imilarly, among people who speak in *alayalam,Appy is simply not the delicious +uice of apples, but an alimentary function.

egend has it that the Hero -uch moped had a really hard time hi Andhra

-radesh, despite being one of the more successful two(wheelers launched in theearly /0s. In 'elugu, the word -uch turned out to be rather embarrassing code forthe female anatomy. 1learly, no one hi Andhra -radesh wanted to ride, much lessown a bike such named.

-oor translations, culturally ignorant brand names are not only funny, offensiveor puzzling to the consumer, but also disastrous for the marketer. 2et, there is noshortage of them globally. )candinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolu$ usedthe following in an American campaign3 4othing sucks like an Electrolu$. 1oca(1ola s translation to 5ite the wa$ tadpole in 1hinese is the commonest e$ampleof this, before a few sounds +uggled around made it Happiness in the mouth.

!ith over 60 ma+or languages and 700 dialects, the problem in India can posenightmares. An average of 80 per cent people in each state prefers the statelanguage in their everyday interaction. 5ut not all is lost. 9or every Wakaw! thatwent bad, there is a % Toofani Thanda! that captured the flavour of the brand

perfectly. eading the crusade for effective transcreation into regional languagesin Indian advertising today is 4 5ai+al, managing director of Apni anguages-vt. td. armed with the belief, %'here is life beyond English.%

%'he whole base of regional translations is wrong. 'here is no control andmonitoring. It has become a commodity business, where unknown languagewriters visit agencies and charge by the :0(word unit for ;s:0. It has become a

part of the production process, which makes it all penny wise, pound foolish,%e$plains 5ai+al.5ai+al s solution to this is transcreation, as opposed i translation. 'ranscreation isresult(oriented conceptual thinking in Hindi and other regional languages,keeping, in mind the language and cultural idiom in the target language. An ideal

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recreation should have the same punch< flavour, effectiveness and impact as thesource language. It s the transfer of a thought from one language to another.

In 'elugu -uch *eans =$>... @ THE ROOTS OF LANGUAGE

'he origins of Indian advertising have been elitist. 'he talent pool came in from)outh *umbai and for a while was dominated by English theatre people who hadmoved into advertising. 'here were more 5ritish agencies than Indian.

!e started shaking off our colonial hangover only in the B0s, when agencies andmarketers realised that localisation of offering was more effective in selling it inregional markets.

Cnfortunately, for a few decades, this merely meant a hurried translation withouta real crossover of the brand benefits and associations. In the early /0s with thetelevision boom, language advertising had become an imperative part of all9*1& campaigns.

D'he whole base of regional translations is wrong. It has become a commodity business, where unknown language writers visit agencies and charge by the :0(word unit for ;s. :0. F .4. 5ai+al.

THE START OF A REVIVAL

'oday many of the larger agencies G # *, intas, *c1ann, *udra and eo5urnett, to name a few G have adopted the belief and have developed in(houselanguage competencies. -ushpinder )ingh, national creative director ofAmbience in fact had pointed out to a roomful of stunned delegates at aninternational conference in Argentina earlier this year, %In India, a campaign issuccessful if it is successful across 66 languages.%

%I ve never looked at work as mainline advertising and language advertising. Ifyou have a piece of creative and it cannot be created in half a dozen Indianregional languages, then you don t have a piece of creative going. !hen youwork on national level brands, especially 9*1&s, you re forever conscious of thefact. anguage campaigns are important to the point of where they determine thefate of your brand. If your campaign is not going down in other languages, thenits e$cellence in Hindi or English is purely academic,% believes )ingh.

9or ebashis as, president of interland J intas rural marketing divisionK, %It snot only the right thing to do, but we LalsoM have to do it, otherwise we won t be

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successful.% 5eing able to understand the region and adapting a campaign to it isthe purpose of interland s e$istence. At the grassroots, translation simply doesnot work.

%Even in LHindi dominantM C-, in certain villages, you need a different language,a different dialect, a different thought. )o even C- is two or three differentmarkets for us. It has to be in the dialect that people relate to. 'hey have toconnect to this,% says as. ;ural marketing is often done in media(dark areas andso the paradigm of starting out in Hindi and then moving from that to otherlanguages does not work. -osters, vans and door(to(door campaigns mean thatyou can t but operate in the local language according to as.

'hese efforts to bring languages into Indian advertising have been mirrored byArvind )harma, chairman 1E# of eo 5urnett. %I would think that today atleast two(thirds of Indian advertising is conceived in languages. 'here was a

phase in the /0s when a lot of people in advertising had English as their mothertongue. As advertising became more professional, that is no longer true. 'odayno creative person will go that wayN they will sit down and talk the consumer slanguage.% )harma s creative directors are all bilingual, if not trilingual. 'heycome from all over the country and speak the state language. According to him,the last time he hired someone for his English copy abilities was in O//7, and notwithout serious internal dialogue. 4ow when creative people are hired, thePuality of their ideas is +udged, rather than the language that they deliver it in. Infact, Hindi has taken the place of the ubiPuitous English of the Q0s in agencies.

'he worry has now moved from correctness to flavour. 'he 9*1& slowdownled to, among many things, advertising being e$amined more minutely. Almosteveryone agrees that the market is crueller today, more demanding and thereforefairer.

ROADBLOCKS LESSONS

'he first step of this natural revival seems to be complete, thanks to recent smalltown affluence and consumption, the reach of '" and the recognition of ruralmarkets. 5ut the situation is far from ideal. 'he importance of language

competencies may have been +ustified in the larger agencies over time. 2et, thedevelopment of effective regional communication in Indian advertising as awhole seems to depend on four key factors3 cost Jincluding time and effortK,

brands < clients handled talent and the medium.

* & -arameswaran, e$ecutive director of 915(Clka and president of the Ad1lub, Puestions, %How much time and effort can Lagencies and clientsM spend oneach language? How much would a client be willing to give for getting thecampaign out in two to three languages? 'he second Puestion is, if you respending ;s. O00 crores on a campaign, how much LmoneyM is spent on Hindi,

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how much on 'amil? )o proportionately also spend time on it. If the client is particular and the agency is particular then you get involvement.% -arameswaranfeels that speaking to clients about investing more time, effort and money winlead to better results. Agencies and clients are familiar with the scenario of takingfive weeks over the original Hindi line, but approving each language line in lessthan O0 minutes.

as on the other hand feels that it is a demand(supply ePuation3 D!hy wouldagencies LtranscreateM if the clients don t demand it or need this kind of work.L9or e$ampleM, In urban centres, English still works. It is according to need.'here is nothing wrong with that. Agency funds and deadlines being what theyare, only the need of the hour is given priority in terms of money and timeinvestments. ike as says, DIf the client approves, &od approves. A regionalapproach puts a lot of pressure on advertisers and communicators, because they

can t do one -an(Asia campaignN they will need to do localised campaigns.as biggest problem, even in interland, continues to be finding the right

people. D!e are already using e$perts. If a 'amil writer makes a flaw, who isgoing to correct him? )o who controls or monitors the best? He feels that thereare a large number of language writers, but they are best at the +ob of translating,if they are given and asked to think up a brand or creative idea in 5engali, fore$ample, then theyR can t do it because they re trained to look for an EnglishR orHindi line and put it down in a language. #ne of tougher tasks has been to find

people who understand the rural idiom and are capable communications

specialists as well. 9or now, every once in a while he goes into the smaller townsand recruits people from colleges, 4s or other service organisations there.

-arameswaran relies on his board and colleagues. %*ost agencies have a mini(India. All of us have been all over.% 9or him, this takes away the problem ofmisunderstanding the culture. %'he issue is how is the idea e$plained in eachlanguage? And is it e$plained in the most interesting manner?% Also, for thismovement to gain momentum, he feels that some e$citement has to be in+ectedinto it. As the situation stands today, it simply doesn t have the e$citementPuotient of the '" e$plosion, or )*) marketing.

9or )harma, languages are given importance in agencies that are not only print(centric, but also do radio and '" work. %'o me the power of the language isrelated to the power of the medium. )o long as '" has power and radio has

power it will always be languages. If you re talking television, how can you eventhink in English? )pots conceived hi English will always seem corny when

postulated into Indian languages@% he chuckles. He gives the case of 1omplan,which has 7: per cent of its sales in !est 5engal and another 7: per cent in'amil 4adu. )o it becomes important that the team has one person whounderstands 5engali and another who understands 'amil, right from the brand

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planning work where they go out to speak to the consumers. %2ou can t conversewith consumers of soaps and serials in English@ 'hey may speak it andunderstand it, but it is not their first language,% he adds.

In &arhwali !akaw means "omit

In *alayalam Appy means )hit#ver the last 70 years, 5ai+al has tried to clear a way for languages in Indianadvertising. According to him, languages can get a leg up only if the ad agenciesmake some fundamental changes.)ome of his observations are3

'he thought process needs to begin in regional languages. 'he marketer, strategist, domain e$pert, creative person and art director

should be involved and there should be more coordination betweenthem.

anguage or copy rendering should be looked at as a piece of communicationand should stand on its own.

'he need for localisation varies from category to category. 9or e$ample, theneeds of ad copy are different from technical writing. Hence conceiving andtranscreating in the regional languages should be done accordingly.

;egional communication should be considered a function of creative copy