Hindu launches Tamil daily to 'bring alive the world in your language'

The television campaign conceptualised by Ogilvy Chennai shows how everything sounds sweeter in one's own language



Sohini Sen | Mumbai | September 23, 2013

Click on the image to watch the TVC.

South India's leading English newspaper, The Hindu, has gone regional. The Hindu Group of Publications launched a Tamil daily on September 16, 2013. Through a charming campaign, the group has decided to show how the journalistic ethics and quality equated with The Hindu will now be available in the regional language.

The daily will engage readers of all age groups with extensive regional, national and international news coverage. With an array of interesting supplements, the Tamil newspaper will be a balanced mix of information and entertainment. The initial print run is around 6 lakh copies. The launch was planned to be on time for the festival season.

To mark the launch of the Tamil daily, The Hindu Group has gone on air with a television campaign conceptualised by Ogilvy Chennai. The TVC opens with a child uttering his first syllable – 'aa'. The same note is repeated with a much more violent tone by a young boy in a protest march. A politician laughs 'e-e-e'. The scene changes and a bike's roaring tyre makes the same sound with a mechanical note. A lady about to deliver her child screams out in pain which sounds like 'ooo' while the same sound comes from a wolf's call in a jungle at night. This goes on all through the 30-second TVC – showing sadhus and cricketers, soldiers and footballers, all speaking out different syllables of the Indian alphabet. The video then changes to a shot of a printing press where 'The Hindu' is being published in Tamil. The voiceover declares that it is indeed sweeter to hear things in your own language.

"When we started working on the campaign we knew Hindu as the 135-year-old legendary newspaper. We needed to communicate that in the new Tamil edition none of the high quality reporting or journalistic ethics would be compromised. If you notice, the visuals are from different segments that the newspaper covers – politics, health, sports and general news. Therefore, The Hindu becomes a window to the world, and this is now available in your own language," said Joono Simon, Executive Creative Director (South), Ogilvy.

Arun Anant, CEO of Kasturi & Sons Ltd, publishers of The Hindu, commented, "We believe that we have built a great brand over the last 135 years in The Hindu and now want to give deliver the same quality in Tamil. This is also backed by our research and readership intervention across Tamil Nadu. Also, in the last couple of years regional language dailies have been growing faster than English language dailies. This is partly because advertising is moving in tier 2 and tier 3 towns. So we see a great opportunity in this space."

Anant added, "It was never a strategic decision in the group to have only English titles. So, in that sense this is not a surprise. However, the regional language press has been showing a greater pace of growth in terms of readership and also advertising revenues. We also understand this market well and our research and consumer group interventions pointed to a space to operate.  Hence we are there.”

The company has extended the campaign to print and radio as well. While around a dozen print ads have been designed around the same theme, five radio spots have also been made in the local language.

"Today, the average Tamil reader has a global outlook.  He believes the world is at his feet.  He is as much interested in hyper local news as much as his interest in regional, national and global news and this will be strongly reflected in our new offering. The route we have taken in our campaign is to reflect the product offering. Our tagline, 'Ulagam uyir perum ungal mozhiyil', translates to bringing alive the world in your language," said Bharath Ganapathi, General Manager, Corporate, The Hindu Group.

The TVC:

https://img-cdn.thepublive.com/filters:format(webp)/

Credits:

Creative Agency: Ogilvy & Mather, South

Executive Creative Director (South): Joono Simon

Associate Creative Directors: Binu Varghese, Vasudevan N

Creative Controller & Writer: Deepan Ramachandran, Boopathy Krishnan

Art Director: Mahesh MD, Chenthil Kumar

President: Simmi Sabhaney

Client Servicing Director: Karthik Hariharan

Account Supervisor: Aruna Narsi

Account Executive: Sneha Singh

Production House: Black Box Films

Executive Producer: Gowri Krishnakumar

Director: Krishnakumar R

Sohini.Sen@BestMediaInfo.com

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