In an exclusive piece for MediaBrief, Nimitha Reddy, Operations Head at Bangalore-based digital advertising agency Synergos, writes about why vernacular marketing cannot be treated as a regional afterthought, the importance of culturally relevant communication in diverse markets, and how brands can build stronger consumer connections through language-led strategies. Read on.
In 2012, Professor Boaz Keysar and his colleagues at the University of Chicago set out to study how language shapes human decision making. What he found is a lesson so fundamental in trust, emotion and identity. Keysar and his colleagues uncovered that people process information more emotionally and make choices more instinctively when they operate in their native tongue. A foreign language by contrast, creates psychological distance, reducing the emotional resonance of a message.
For decades, brands largely ignored this. A crisp English headline, maybe a Hindi voiceover, and the job was considered done. In a country where most people do not think in English at all, the gap between a brand that speaks your language and one that does not is trust. Trust is where market share is won and lost.
The implications for marketers are impossible to ignore, especially in a linguistically diverse market like India. India has hundreds of different consumer categories. A homemaker in Coimbatore, a kirana owner in Lucknow, and a first-generation smartphone user in rural Odisha all share a country, a flag, and very little else in the way they think, speak and decide what to buy.
“As internet penetration deepens into Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in India, and as voice search and regional content platforms grow, the next wave of consumers are arriving online with vernacular languages as their default mode of engagement” – Nimitha Reddy
A nation with 22 official languages and hundreds of dialects is a constellation of markets, each with its own emotional vocabulary. The brands paying attention to this are building genuine cultural belonging, something that’s hard to replicate.
The numbers are unambiguous
The research firm CSA Research surveyed 8,709 consumers across 29 countries and published their findings in the report “Can’t Read, Won’t Buy”. Their conclusion was stark: 76% of online shoppers prefer to buy products with information in their native language, and 40% will simply never buy from a website in another language. Companies that refuse to localise risk losing 40% or more of their total addressable market, because most consumers would rather think, act, and buy in their own language.
The lack of linguistic diversity in marketing and customer communications is clearly lost revenue. Language loyalty, it turns out, outlasts language ability.
Trust is in the familiar: Native tongues
Native tongues are the language people think in, dream in and connect emotionally. The moment of connection when two Tamil speakers meet on a train in Delhi, or the Gujarati speakers finding each other in Bengaluru’s metro are all examples of how native tongues are linked to trust in the consumer’s mind.
The psychology here runs deeper than mere preference. A study published in 2020 found that social familiarity, including the language in which we are raised, is directly embedded in how people extend trust to others and to brands. The words that feel native to us carry emotional weight that borrowed vocabulary simply cannot replicate.
“Vernacular marketing can’t be a regional afterthought for brands operating in diverse markets. It is the front line of differentiation” – Nimitha Reddy
Keysar’s broader research programme reinforces that the native tongue mediates judgements and choices because it provides an emotional connection that shapes, and sometimes amplifies the impact of a message. A brand speaking your language is signalling that it belongs to your world.
The trap of literal translation: It is tempting, don’t fall for it
In India, the vernacular opportunity is playing out in vivid commercial terms. Lufthansa’s More Indian Than You Think campaign created a microsite in five Indian languages, targeting non-English-speaking travellers, and reported a 13 percent increase in passenger growth as a direct result.
Amul, the dairy cooperative that began advertising in Gujarati in 1956, has built one of India’s most trusted and enduring brands precisely because its Amul Girl mascot “can speak all the Indian languages”. Godrej Appliances now directs over 50% of its marketing spends into vernacular channels during festival seasons, with regional OTT campaigns reaching 95 million views.
These are the proof of concepts and some brands learned the lesson a long time ago, while others still rely on badly dubbed ads that don’t emotionally resonate with consumers. What separates successful vernacular marketing from a failed one is the distinction between translation and transcreation. A direct translation preserves words. Transcreation preserves meaning, emotion, and cultural resonance. A campaign that lands beautifully in Punjab may feel hollow in Tamil Nadu, even if every word is technically correct, because idioms, humour, and cultural reference points differ at the district level.
“Speak the language people dream in, and they will do more than listen. They will buy” – Nimitha Reddy
Research on the impact of language in advertising on consumer purchase intentions confirms that language style, communication tone, and cultural congruence collectively determine whether a message builds brand trust or undermines it. Language, in this context, is not the container for a brand’s message. It is the message.
Vernacular marketing can’t be a regional afterthought for brands operating in diverse markets. It is the front line of differentiation. As internet penetration deepens into Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities in India, and as voice search and regional content platforms grow, the next wave of consumers are arriving online with vernacular languages as their default mode of engagement.
Brands that meet them there, speaking with fluency and cultural honesty, will earn something that no media budget can manufacture: the trust of someone who feels genuinely seen. The science, the data, and the market results all point in the same direction. Speak the language people dream in, and they will do more than listen. They will buy.
