Advertising Goes Regional

Ramaji Venkatapathy, a student from Anakapalli, Andhra Pradesh decided to buy a laptop from a multi-brand dealer. He finds many Point of Sale (PoS) marketing materials, at the shop. While a Bollywood star endorses one brand for faster booting and there's another luring you to buy a particular brand for faster performance. However, Venkatapathy was not influenced by both the actors and buys the third brand endorsed by a popular cricketer.

In a country like India, where a numner of customs, religions, traditions co-exist, a single celebrity representing a brand, might not do the needful. Especially in South India, which has completely different taste and expectations. Therefore it has become very important for the vendors to think about creating a regionalized flavur in all the marketing activities, in the region.

Bollywood still has the lion's share amongst the endorsement market. There was a point when cricketers and other sport stars started notching deals at par with the actors, but again the tides shifted in favor of the latter. According to a report, the celebrity endorsement market in India is `850 crore annually. And movie stars command 70% of this, while the remaining is mostly conquered by sport stars. The surprising part is, of this, South Indian movie stars only account for a meager amount of `20 crore!

According to experts, to penetrate further into these ‘regional' markets, brands need to localize the campaigns and make them relevant for the consumer. In most cases, a Bollywood star wouldn't be enough. For example, even though Andhra Pradesh seems to be more of Bollywood crazy for the outside world, still Telugu stars rule in the state. A big-budget Bollywood starrer, like ‘My Name is Khan' or ‘3 Idiots' would release in about 30 towns in Andhra Pradesh. If a brand has to do an "in-film placement" and marketing tie up to increase their AP sales, a small-budget Telugu film is a better platform. Though people in tier-II and tier-III cities can recognize Bollywood stars, most of them wouldn't connect to them as they wouldn't have seen the movies (or very few, if so) of those stars. Even in a mega city like Hyderabad, where over 60% of the people can speak Hindi, the highest grossing Telugu film (Magadheera) sold `22 crore worth tickets, whereas the biggest Hindi hit (3 Idiots) sold just `9 crore worth tickets!

In Karnataka, Bengaluru houses a mix of people and so may make magic from Bollywood celebrities, but what about regions like Mysore or Chikmagalur?

 

The worst case is Tamil Nadu and Kerala, where people are very possessive for their mother-tongue.
Some of the smarter non-IT brands have realized they need a local brand ambassador if they have to improve the ‘connect' between the consumers and their products. Some brands already have a separate brand ambassadors for their ‘national' campaign and regional consumers.
Also, while huge amount is spent on bringing actress like Kareena Kapoor or Katrina Kaif, for a potential buyer in South, especially in upcountry region, these superstars are just another fair and good looking models from North India.

advertising GURU speaks

"First, I do not think a celebrity has a role to play in endorsing a technology brand. However, due to strong competition, when one hero endorses a laptop, simultaneously, the competitor rope in another hero who is the competitor for the former in the movie industry," says Sridhar Ramanujam, founder CEO, Integrated Brand-Comm, one of the leading advertising agencies.
According to him this trend was first introduced by some of the Japan-based corporate companies. "Some of the Japanese companies do not have a clear understanding of the Indian market. With some research reports stating that a celebrity endorsement have value, they appoint a celebrity for pan-India which will not work," Sridhar says that the trend of regional-specific advertisements started in late 80s itself. "I believe, Asian Paints brought a Tamil Nadu-specific advertisement in 1987 considering the market here," says Sridhar concluding that the dubbed advertisements of North Indian stars are too pathetic in South and do not make any sense.

B SWAMINATHAN
(swaminathanb@cybermedia.co.in)