Most successful startups were born to solve a problem. So said many wise women and men. The founder of TechCrunch Michael Arrington (now running Arrington XRP Capital) famously referred to this as ‘someone wanting to scratch an itch’. In the case of Chennai-based agency Mind Your Language, the writing was on the wall and in its name.
Inspired by Ogilvy Dakshin, the duo of CEO and Creative Director Deepan Ramachandran and Creative Director Pandiyaraj M set up shop eight years ago. It was admittedly a slow start. But they now stand vindicated, handling transcreation through a specialised unit Southify, creating original region-specific communication for national brands and also growing to handle national campaigns from its home base of Chennai.
A decade ago, large companies (like HUL and Dabur) started talking about winning in ‘Many Indias’, notes Ramachandran. At the time, a lot of seasoned ad agency hands were also setting up creative shops.
“At the same time, we were appalled at some ads targeted at us (consumers in the four South language markets) that were thought of in Mumbai boardrooms. India is a land of many markets. There was a shift in thinking in terms of tailoring to different markets. But it still did not translate into going in search of specialists (for that market),” he explains.
Those were the early days. The shift has happened now, going by Mind Your Language’s success.
The startup years saw the duo make many a trip to NCR and Mumbai to try and persuade clients to look at customised communication for Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and the two Telugu-speaking states. On one such visit, when pitching an idea alongside celebrated cricket commentator Harsha Bhogle who was making the case for a ‘KBC for Sports’, Deepan recalls that a marketing head of a private bank sought them out and asked if they could help with a specific problem for the Tamil Nadu market. It was a reassuring recognition, and also a reaffirmation that there was a need for region-specific solutions.
One grows with clients and Mind Your Language’s story is no different. Work in the South markets for national brands eventually led to the agency being given a go at pan-India campaigns. For clients that Mind Your Language wrote push SMS notifications, it is now writing films.
What helps the agency’s work stand out is its core strength – its understanding of the local idiom and drawing from popular culture to create clutter-breaking work. This is evident in pieces like ‘Weekend Vettu’ for Swiggy and the Simran-Madhavan series for Swiggy Instamart. The ‘Weekend Vettu’ campaign resulted in traffic in Chennai rising significantly for the food ordering app, reveals Ramachandran.
Handling brands like Matrimony.com, Paytm, Cars24, besides those from Dabur, Nestle and ITC and more, the portfolio now looks complete with national brands complementing the regional retail biggies like RMKV.
“We learnt advertising from national brands and from watching national ad films. So it’s not like we do not understand how to handle those,” underlines Pandiyaraj. While the regional understanding and nuance remains the trump card, Mind Your Language is making its mark with some pieces of national work.
Southify Grows
The core team of 18 (overall) is supplemented by a good number of freelancers and collaborators.
“We have people who are living in these markets, aware of what is happening on the ground – not people who were ‘Once upon a time in Chennai / Hyderabad’,” quips Ramachandran, emphasising the need for the local understanding in order to connect with the audience.
Badly translated ads are a pain point that many have lamented about over time. Mind Your Language’s transcreation unit Southify is ‘catching up’ with the higher value agency business but both are growing.
Southify, which was launched in 2017 two years after Mind Your Language, handles a gamut of advertisers and also works with agencies. While some viewed it as competition initially, there were agencies like Spring Marketing Capital and CreativeLand Asia that viewed them as collaborators, says Ramachandran.
When IPL advertising was at its peak (a couple of years ago), around 80 pc of IPL ads in Tamil must have been handled by Southify, he estimates. The number is still significant, though the number of advertisers has done down.
Several pieces of work for HUL feature in Southify’s reel. As does work for Fevicol (above) and Cars24.
“Eventually the brand’s line is only two or three words. That’s the most important story of your brand. Brands are slowly understanding the importance of transcreation,” notes Ramachandran.
Made in Chennai, For India
Finding regional language talent is an issue, underline the duo. A lot of it has to do with potential talent that could come into advertising not knowing that such an option exists, they contend.
“Language copywriters are in huge demand. We need to tell them (freshers) that there is a profession called advertising. We have started accepting invitations from colleges to talk to students. To tell them that it’s not just about print and television; trying to seed the thought about advertising as a career,” says Ramachandran.
Ramachandran, himself a software engineer who moved into advertising, and Pandiyaraj, who worked as an Assistant Director in feature films before taking the plunge, connected at Ogilvy Chennai with a common love for films. They used to make trips to Puducherry and flesh out scenes whenever they could. An OTT player even signed a deal for one of their scripts but that didn’t take off due to creative differences. While they still harbour ambitions for films and OTT content, it has taken a back seat because Mind Your Language and Southify have kept them busy.
When many of their ilk moved to other markets like Mumbai and Bengaluru to grow in their careers, the two ad men chose to stay in Chennai because of their love of films. The early agency days may have posed a challenge and caused some amount of doubt even in their own minds. There was certainly a need for it, but the question was about realising the opportunity in transcreation and customisation for regional markets.
It is now evident that it was an idea whose time was around the corner.
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