Here is a market reality that continues to astound me in its neglect: the majority of India’s consumers do not primarily consume information in English. Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Kannada, Bengali, Marathi — these are the languages in which hundreds of millions of Indians form their opinions, make their purchase decisions, and develop their trust in brands. And yet the overwhelming majority of PR strategy in India remains English-first, metro-first, and digital-English-first.
This is not just a cultural blind spot. It is a massive commercial opportunity being routinely left on the table.
The regional media landscape in India is extraordinary in its scale and its influence. Hindi newspapers like Dainik Bhaskar and Dainik Jagran reach audiences that dwarf the English press. Regional television news commands viewership that no English Channel can approach. And the rise of digital vernacular platforms — short-video apps, regional YouTube channels, WhatsApp-distributed news — has created entirely new influence ecosystems that most national PR strategies have not mapped.
The brands and the PR practices that are going to win the next decade of Indian market growth are the ones that build genuine vernacular communication capability — not translation capability. There is a fundamental difference. Translation is taking your English press release and converting it to Hindi. Vernacular communication is building a story that was designed from the ground up for a Hindi-speaking audience in Lucknow, using references, language, and media relationships that resonate with that specific context.
This requires different journalist relationships, different storytelling frameworks, different spokesperson development, and a different understanding of what ‘news’ means in regional markets versus metro markets. It is more complex than English-language PR. It is also significantly more impactful for the brands willing to do it properly.
India’s communications industry has an English-speaking glass ceiling built into its core assumptions. Breaking through that ceiling is not just the right thing to do for brands that want to reach all of India. It is the strategic imperative for any agency or communications practice that wants to be genuinely relevant to the Indian market in the coming decade.
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