Localisation of ads is the buzz among MNCs

More and more multinational companies are importing their global ad campaigns and localising them by adding Indian flavour to suit the audience here.

Pepsi is a pioneer in this. The company kicked off the trend in the early 90s by adapting its international advertisement with Michael J Fox to the one with Amir Khan and Aishwarya Rai. Of late, Max New York Life adapted Partners For Life by playing with dependability and Rahul Dravid, The Wall.

Mountain Dew's current campaign is locally created, but the earlier ones, like Cheetah Bhi Peeta Hai, were adaptations.

Leo Burnett in India has developed an entire local campaign based on McDonalds' global tag line, I'm Loving It.

Another example is Coca-Cola's Cricket Jiyo Coke Piyo campaign, which originally underlined Coke's compatibility with soccer in the West.

With consumer insights across the globe becoming more integrated and the Indian consumer being more open to global trends, there was far greater collaboration between marketers, said Grey Worldwide's Chief Operating Officer Ashutosh Khanna.

MNCs issue brand guidelines and local markets are expected to adhere to the decided templates. More importantly, though, the Indian consumer has also started accepting global campaign models. MNCs are now comfortable with reinforcing their global position in the country by directly importing campaigns, sometimes with no local flavour.

For instance, Samsung India supplemented its local product campaigns with its global Imagine series in 2005 and Everyone's Invited in 2004.

Similarly, while most of Nokia's advertisements are directly lifted, some international campaigns are also customised to local tastes, with changes such as the soundtrack in its recent CDMA campaign.

According to industry experts, adaptations and localisation of global campaigns do not imply lack of creativity in India. Suhel Seth, CEO, Equus RedCell, said, LG's local adaptation of 'Life's Good' was an example of how Indian creativity had proved to be inspirational from a global tag line.

All experts agree that convenience and financial reasons attribute to global brands opting for customised campaigns.

Amitesh Rao, vice-president, Publicis, said lack of time and connectivity, not only with consumers but also within the company, was the other important consideration.

McCann Erickson president Santosh Desai pointed out that sometimes this was a mandate from the overseas headquarters and therefore not open to discussion.

He added that many times ads were directly lifted as the magnitude of its scale could not be replicated here.

An example of this is the Pepsi advertisement with soccer players David Beckham, Ronaldinho, Thierry Henry, Roberto Carlos and Raul Gonzales surfing in the ocean.

Seth also said blind customisation of campaigns can also be dangerous as companies are aiming to connect with not only the urban Indian, but also with the semi-urban and rural Indian.