Marketing in 2025: Language, Culture, and Commerce in the New India
Aug 7, 2025
Imagine a grandmother in Kanpur, scrolling through her phone, stumbling upon a 60-second video of a creator explaining skincare routines in perfect Awadhi dialect. She watches, immerses, purchases, shares, and becomes a brand advocate overnight. Meanwhile, in Bengaluru, a tech professional discovers a new restaurant through a 30-second Tamil food review that speaks to his roots. These aren't isolated moments; they represent India's most profound marketing transformation yet.
India is not just consuming content in its native languages, but demanding that brands truly understand and speak its soul.
The Cultural Awakening: When Language Becomes Currency
The numbers tell a story every consumer marketer should memorize: 86% of Indians prefer content in their native language. But this isn't merely about translation; it's about cultural relevance. When brands speak Hindi, Tamil, Bengali, or any of India's linguistic assortments, they connect at the deepest level of identity.
Beyond language preference, 84% of Indians find content in their regional languages more relatable and trustworthy, creating an unprecedented opportunity for brands to build audience trust. This trust translates directly into business outcomes: 45% of Indians make purchases based on videos from creators in their native tongue, glorifying how short videos influence buying decisions in action.
Vernacular content as marketing asset in India performs better and redefines what performance means, seeing 1.5 to 2 times higher engagement rates compared to English-first content. The reason? Emotional connection through native content. When a brand understands your festivals and celebrates your cultural moments, it transforms from a vendor into a member of your community.
Major brands are recognizing this culture commerce. Cadbury's "Shubh Diwali" campaign became a cultural phenomenon by embracing regional storytelling, while Asian Paints' "#HarGharDiwali" campaign celebrated home makeovers across diverse Indian traditions. These campaigns became creator-driven brand storytelling strategies resonating across millions of households.
Short-Form's Behavioral Revolution: Beyond Entertainment to Action
Short video has evolved into a new way Indians discover, evaluate, and purchase products. Nearly 47% of Indian consumers are influenced by short-form videos while making purchases. According to a report by ShareChat and Moj, Indians spend an average of 30 minutes daily on short-form video platforms, with 29% spending more than 60 minutes daily. This isn't passive consumption; it's short-form video engagement in tier 3 cities and beyond.
ShareChat and Moj see over 10 crore micro drama episodes watched daily, while platforms like Josh and Moj have achieved over 350 million active users, with 90% consuming content in local languages. These platforms have transitioned into discovery engines where brands and culture meet consumers in their most receptive moments.
Tier-3 consumers show the highest influence from short-form videos, with 49% making purchase decisions based on them. This marks a fundamental shift where India is not just consuming content but driving commercial decisions through authentic, culturally relevant storytelling - a key indicator of the impact of regional creators on brand growth.
Regional Creators: The Pulse of India's Marketing Evolution
The creator culture in India has undergone a seismic shift, with regional performance outperforming metros, regional creators achieving 40% higher engagement rates than their metro counterparts. We are talking about reach and relevance here. Indian influencers bring cultural context no algorithm can replicate and local branding no celebrity can buy.
Nancy Tyagi's journey from Baranwa village in Uttar Pradesh to collaborating with global brands like Samsung and L’Oréal Paris and walking the red carpet at Cannes exemplifies this revolution. She leveraged her authenticity to create a bridge between global brands and Indian consumers. Similarly, creators like Anju Mor and Divya Sree are building sustainable income streams through regional content trends in Indian advertising, proving that authenticity is commercially viable.
Regional creators often provide 20-30% lower CPC with higher engagement rates, making them equally effective and cost-efficient. Furthermore, 40% of national campaign briefs now mandate vernacular engagement, signaling a fundamental change in how brands approach brand to brand marketing and creator engagement.
However, challenges persist. Regional creators with 300K followers typically earn 30-40% less than metro counterparts, highlighting the need for brands and culture to appropriately recognize and reward cultural authenticity. Forward-thinking brands are addressing this gap, understanding that regional creators offer irreplaceable value in building audience trust and engagement in India’s diverse markets.
Festive Marketing: When Culture Becomes Commerce
India's festive calendar represents the ultimate intersection of brands and culture, where digital participation transforms brands into cultural participants. As per ShareChat and Moj’s report, Short Form Big Impact: Festive Blueprint, 70% of creators increase content production around festivals, with 79% seeing increased user engagement. This isn’t seasonal opportunism, it’s strategic cultural participation in digital campaigns.
Taking advantage of Rakshabandhan fervour 2025, Sugar Free D’lite adopted a witty faux matrimonial twist starring local influencers Mallika Dua and Chetan Goel, promoting mindful gifting via limited-edition gift packs and the hashtag #CaloriesSeRaksha.
Similarly, Flipkart’s 2025 Rakhi campaign, “InvoiSIS,” brilliantly fuses humor with Indian cultural nuances by letting sisters create playful invoices for all the “secret-keeping” and care they’ve provided brothers, transforming sibling banter into a festival highlight. The campaign used a microsite styled like a traditional Indian invoice pad, blending cultural symbols with relatable modern behavior. By incorporating mobile storytelling and working with influencer CA Rachana Ranade, Flipkart connects with Gen Z and millennials while celebrating Rakshabandhan’s essence in a fresh, shareable way. It speaks India’s language, rooted in tradition, yet tailored for today’s sibling dynamics and digital-first families.
Flipkart's "Big Billion Days" during Dussehra transformed a traditional festival into India's biggest shopping event, while Amazon India's "Great Indian Festival" leveraged culture for marketing success in India. These campaigns succeeded because they understood that during festivals, Indians shop and celebrate, and brands that participate in the celebration rather than exploiting it build lasting relationships.
The festive surge isn't just about increased spending; it’s about emotional availability. 34% of shoppers are open to exploring new brands during festivals, with 39% in Western India showing curiosity toward new brands. This represents a unique window where cultural celebration meets commercial exploration, creating optimal conditions for brand discovery and brand loyalty.
Micro-Dramas: India's New Prime Time
Traditional prime time, that predictable evening window when families gathered around television sets, has been replaced by "micro-prime time" moments throughout the day. Micro-dramas, typically under 5 minutes per episode, define a new kind of prime time for mobile-first users, creating binge-worthy, emotionally punchy content designed for India's fragmented attention patterns.
India's micro-drama market is projected to hit $5 billion in five years, driven by platforms like Bullet, ReelSaga, and Kuku TV. These shortened television shows are narrative formats designed for mobile storytelling, vertical viewing, and cultural relevance. Fifteen crore users consumed drama shorts on Moj and Quick TV in just three months, indicating a massive appetite for serialized vernacular content.
The format’s success lies in its balance of entertainment and efficiency. They fill the gap between mindless scrolling and complex storytelling, providing narrative satisfaction in digestible portions.
Brands are recognizing this opportunity. Advertising rates for micro-dramas currently command CPMs between Rs 800 to Rs 2,000, while their production costs remain fractional compared to traditional content. More importantly, they offer unique opportunities for brand integration within culturally relevant storytelling, allowing brands to participate in narratives rather than interrupt them.
Trust Through Transparency: The Always-On Advantage
Short video content’s greatest advantage isn't brevity, it’s authenticity. Unlike traditional advertising's polished perfection, short-form thrives on relatability, creating audience trust through transparency rather than aspiration. Research shows that usefulness, ease of use, and entertainment in short-form video content significantly affect consumers' trust and purchase intention.
This trust-building happens through consistent, authentic engagement rather than sporadic campaign bursts. Brands leveraging short video effectively maintain an "always-on" presence, participating in daily conversations, digital participation, and consumer lives rather than interrupting them with promotional messages.
Vernacular engagement can boost internet growth in India by 24%, suggesting that native content doesn’t just serve existing audiences, it creates new ones. Brands embracing language-first strategies aren't just reaching different consumers; they're expanding the definition of who their consumers can be.
The shift toward short video signals is changing consumer expectations about digital identity. Modern Indian consumers expect brands to be culturally fluent, personally relevant, and consistently present not just during campaigns, but as ongoing participants in cultural and commercial lives.
The Strategic Imperative: Culture as Competitive Advantage
India's cultural diversity isn't a marketing challenge to overcome; it’s a competitive advantage to embrace. Brands succeeding in this space understand that culture isn't context; it's strategy. They're not translating English campaigns into regional languages; they're creating culturally native experiences that resonate authentically with diverse communities.
ShareChat’s 75-80% of creators coming from Tier 2 and 3 regions signals where cultural authenticity lives and thrives. Forward-thinking brands partner with these creators not as cost-effective alternatives to metro influencers but as primary vehicles for culture commerce and regional storytelling.
The future belongs to brands that view India's linguistic and cultural diversity as their greatest marketing asset. Those speaking multiple languages, celebrating diverse traditions, and engaging authentic communities will build relationships that transcend transactional exchanges, creating brand loyalty that drives sustainable business growth.
In this new space, the most successful brands will be those that don't just acknowledge India's cultural complexity; they celebrate it, participate in it, and use it as the foundation for building authentic, lasting consumer relationships. The revolution is digital and deeply cultural, and brands that understand this distinction will define the next decade of Indian marketing excellence.
At Market Xcel, as a leading research company, we help businesses decode such dynamic consumer trends and cultural nuances to craft marketing strategies that resonate deeply and deliver lasting impact in India's diverse marketplace.
Contact us to decode the intricacies of your potential consumer’s behaviour.