Article

Why brands in India must fall in love with the vernacular

Shivaji Dasgupta · afaqs! Free Beginner India

This is the honest gut-check for the exact problem: a brand that reads as English-first, metro-first, Valley-first while the real audience lives elsewhere. Dasgupta argues that reaching people beyond the big English-speaking cities is not about translating your existing look, it is about building for their culture and context from the start. A useful starting point before you decide whether your polished SaaS skin is actually talking to the founders you serve.

• Over 90% of content consumed in India is in regional languages, and the next wave of customers is largely outside the metros, so an English, metro-coded brand quietly excludes them.
• Vernacular does not mean cheap or unpolished: premium and regional can coexist, as Piyush Pandey's Hindi advertising proved decades ago.
• The fix is structural, not cosmetic: segment your audience by culture, create locally rather than translate a national campaign, and treat context as the brief.