Coca Cola talks in Hindi to all Indians--but why?

Media planning has made great strides in India in the last decade, giving advertisers the ability to micro-target and, consequently, reduce wastage and increase efficiency.

In addition to the advances in media planning, advertisers have benefited by the explosion of media products targeting new geographies and in various Indian languages, again reducing wastage and increasing efficiency.

Just two decades ago, large advertisers were forced to go ’national’. As a result, the majority of ads were created in Hindi and English. Regional language advertising was limited to print, radio and outdoor, except for the smattering of ads on local Doordarshan channels.

So what does one make of this ad?

[caption id=“attachment_1315645” align=“alignright” width=“380”] The Coke Ad in Hindi[/caption]

I’m sure that the long copy ad is embellished by long copy. I say that I’m sure because I cannot read it, since the long copy is in Hindi. Like me, many Tamilians would not be able to read it, would not be able to absorb the brilliance of the copy.

So why on earth is this ad appearing in the Chennai edition of The Times of India? A suggestion made by SG Shrinivas, who drew my attention to the ad, is that the deal between Coke and Times of India was for all editions, with the same creative running across the country. Give Coke the benefit of the doubt; perhaps someone goofed by sending the wrong artwork to Chennai.

A quick check says this is not the case. The Hindi copy runs in Kolkata, Bangalore and, would you believe it, Kochi as well. I didn’t bother to check the rest of the editions, but one is sure that the same ad ran everywhere.

What’s wrong with Coke? Have they gone nuts, wasting their money like this?

As far as The Times of India is concerned, someone there must be opening happiness once he totals up the billing.