The Conflict between a Strong Brand and Local Language

1
The Conflict between a Strong Brand and Local
Language
2
If you talk to a man in a language he
understands, that goes to his head. If you talk
to him in his own language, it goes to his
heart. The late former South African President
Nelson Mandelas words ring true till date.
Though originally spoken in order to refer to the
advantage of using local languages by
non-speakers to appeal to the listening
audiences, these words carry a lot of weight when
it comes to the world of branding as well. How?
Well, lets look at what branding is all
about. Formal definition of branding The
marketing practice of creating a name, symbol or
design that identifies or differentiates a
product from other products is known as branding.
3
What it eventually boils down to is this
Branding is nothing but the emotional response a
business evokes in a customer. Brands need to
forge that all-important emotional connection
with their target audiences to be successful in a
long-term scenario.And this is most effective if
a brand uses the local language of the region to
interact with its audience. Broadly speaking,
brands generally look at adopting one of the two
approaches mentioned below when it comes to
reaching out to their customers One, they could
try to promote their products/services big time
by offering whopping discounts on the purchase of
their goods (discount brands). While the former
may yield instant profits for a short while, it
is not an economically viable model in terms of
long term sustainability but then once consumers
start relating to it, theres no looking back.
4
Lets talk about branding from the Indian
perspective. Out of our 1.25 billion strong
Indian population, just about 200 million of us
are proficient in the English language. On the
other hand, almost half a billion Indians can
speak, read and write in Hindi. And when 43 per
cent of the people residing in rural India say
that they would readily adopt the internet if it
had content in their local language, it makes
MNCs look up and take notice when deciding their
branding strategy in a country like India. For
Instances Facebook, the global social media
giant with over 1.44 billion monthly active
users, supports 13 different Indian languages as
of now. That India has the second largest number
of people on Facebook in the world (after United
States) thus comes as no surprise.
5
Flipkart, Jabong and Snapdeal have already begun
to launch their entire websites and even apps in
local languages such as Tamil and Marathi, apart
from Hindi, to cater to the regional populations.
In addition to this, all forms of vernacular
media are being used to tap the potential of its
customers. Yahoo India had started branching
out to seven different Indian languages back from
2007 itself, with the latest addition being the
2012 tie-up with Malayalam Manorama, which has
led to digital content in Malayalam being made
available to users in South India. Hyundai, the
South Korean automobile company which is fast
emerging to be one of the largest manufacturers
in India, has taken on board Shah Rukh Khan,
touted to be the King of Bollywood as its brand
ambassador.
6
Its not what you say that matters, its what
people hear. And the best way to make people
hear is to put a brand message forward in the
local language which ultimately means that
those who speak that particular language
instantly feel positively targeted by the
manufacturer of the brand. An overall substantial
preference came out to be for the consumers
mother tongue. Due to this, a considerably large
number of potential consumers say, those who
dont understand English will avoid spending
time on English language websites and refrain
from buying goods that lack instructions in their
local language (referred to as the Cant Read,
Wont Buy phenomenon). To put it in a nutshell,
the study found that more local language content
throughout the customer experience definitely
leads to a greater likelihood of purchase.
7
Logos and branding are so important. In a big
part of the world, people cannot read French or
English- but are great in remembering
signs. Youre using a language spoken by a
majority of your consumer audience it helps to
connect with the customers at an emotional level
since they feel you are one of their own and
you can thus take advantage of cultural nuances
as well. But then, this is not always possible.
A business cant just randomly change the name of
its product each time it tries to enter a new
area. To overcome this major challenge of
branding across languages, businesses adopt an
almost equally efficient alterative rendering
and re-designing the logo of a business in
different languages in such a way that its
general look is preserved.
8
Brand, Identity and Logo Similar, yet so
different The logo of a business is neither the
brand itself, nor is it the identity of the
brand. The terms logo, brand and identity
hold different meanings and yet are closely
interrelated. Logo Identifies a business in its
simplest form via the use of a mark or
icon. Brand Perceived emotional corporate
image as a whole. Identity Visual aspects that
form part of the overall brand. All three have
got their own parts to play in the branding and
marketing strategy of a particular product. After
all, when you brand yourself properly, the
competition does become irrelevant.
9
Thank You