“Northies” vs. “Southies” is a perennial debate that rarely fails to get a rise out of many on both sides. Being labelled a “Madrasi” is a pet peeve of non-Madrasi south Indians. The relevance of these factors to advertising was in focus last week at the IAA Debates at Chennai, which drew many forceful arguments for and against the idea that ‘there will be no real consumer connect unless advertising is specially created for each South market’.

Why would cola companies not plump for one brand ambassador countrywide or even just two, for the North and South, respectively? Pointing to how they signed on actors Surya in Tamil Nadu and Mahesh Babu and Ram Charan in Andhra Pradesh, Senthil Kumar, National Creative Director, JWT India, said the cola wars show how companies recognise and benefit from advertising tailored to regions.

“The Madrasi is dead,” asserted Kumar. It is time to give Kannada, Malayalam, Telugu and Tamil audiences their due. “Why insult and ignore South India with dubbing artistes?” he demanded, referring to advertising campaigns that are dubbed into various languages and used in States where they fail to resonate locally.

Like a campaign which used the predominantly North Indian festival of Karwa Chauth. Or others where the translations are clumsy, or plain silly. Several European countries are smaller than any of the South Indian States, but they had little advertising in common, Kumar argued.

He and his partner, Madhukar Sabnavis, Vice-Chairman and Country Head – Discovery and Planning, Ogilvy & Mather India, contended that consumer connect relied on how an idea was expressed. Asian Paints’ Kerala-specific campaign for its exterior paint became a great hit, said Sabnavis, even as he questioned whether Indianising global campaigns was enough.

“Now I wonder if it’s enough to paint India as one homogeneous mass,” he said. Only “coconuts” — those white on the inside and brown outside — and he included himself among them — can relate to global campaigns brought to India, he added.

Those arguing against the statement, focused on the universality of emotions and its use in forging bonds. Whether it is a mother-daughter relationship, Anna Hazare/ Aam Aadmi Party’s corruption issue or the video Kolaveri di which went viral, the world is increasingly characterised by monoculture, said Shaleen Sharma, Partner – National Planning & Strategy Initiatives, RK Swamy BBDO.

Commercial considerations were the other factor they cited. Scale and affordability are what count. If there’s a market big enough for the State, city or even a residential colony, a campaign could be customised but would be impractical otherwise.

“If we are so different, why were we served samosas at tea?” countered KV ‘Pops’ Sridhar, Chief Creative Officer, India Sub-continent, Leo Burnett, adding that differences did not invalidate the similarities.

The money angle was pooh-poohed as “oversimplification”. There was also the opinion that not customising a campaign was “lazy”. It is “very lazy” to not change the “expression of an idea”, which is what gets the consumer to choose a brand, said Kumar. Quoting sociologist Paul Harris, who said ‘Consumers globalise, people don’t’, Sabnavis made a case for connecting with people “more acutely, more minutely”.

To the observation that markets need to be big enough for customised campaigns, the counterview was that marketers need to expand business by connecting first.

Staying with the commerce argument, Sridhar said national brands start looking at a regional market when the local brands there start doing really well. That’s when they begin to pay more attention to the region and develop specific campaigns. In a country where dialects change every 22 km, it is necessary to look at similarities and find commonality to be understood.

Kumar and Sabnavis were declared the winning side after a show of hands. A humorous moment during the debate was when Sridhar remarked that despite the South vs. North debate, the South Indians wanted Nagma, Khushboo and Kajol — all north Indians — for their heroines, and Sabnavis retorted with: “Yes, we need to do what the South Indians like.”

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