The Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance (BFSI) industry is now experiencing a massive surge in advertising expenses, this dynamism being directly related to the strategic shift by the industry towards regional narrative and vernacular communication. Marketing specialists and data indicate that there is a universal understanding among the BFSI marketers that local language and culturally relevant stories are the most effective way of explaining complex financial products, establishing the much-needed consumer trust, and eventually generating conversions, especially in the high-growth segments such as insurance, savings, and micro-credit.
Strategic shift and agencies’ estimate
This critical reassessment of content and media mix is directly converting to significantly bigger budgets. Statistics indicate that the amount of funds invested in vernacular communication has increased by 25 to 30%, as BFSI brands drive further into underbanked Tier II, Tier III, and rural markets. This trend is supported by the general financial performance of key players; according to annual reports, Indian banks in total increased their spending on advertising and publicity to ₹4,935 crore in the fiscal year 2025 (FY25), which is quite a significant growth of 14.2% annually. These spending have increased by 43.2% over two years and 161.2% over a period of five years.
Executives who monitor this marketing development mention that the transition to regional engagement is no longer an easy task of translating the already existing English scripts into local languages. Rather, brands have been focusing and spending a lot on culturally based stories, hyperlocal storytelling, and strategic affiliations with region-specific influencers as a way to leverage the enormous new segments of the audience.
This localization approach plays a key role in minimizing the number of drop-offs in the critical purchase funnel. BFSI brands are turning to numerous tools of vernacular, such as videos, voice messages, and chatbots, to overcome consumer apprehension around complex products, such as insurance and online payments, in Tier II and III geographies. Through the familiarity of linguistic and cultural contexts of communicating with the consumers, the consumers become confident and clear, and this results in increased engagement.
Several case studies
Some of the major BFSI players have already incorporated vernacular strategies in their marketing and operations systems. HDFC Life has become a significant player among the insurers with a structured regional strategy that it introduced two years ago, starting with South India and expanding to the East in the present year. According to Pritika Shah, Head of Marketing, the regional work enables the company to explore deeper and pay more attention to insights and be able to capture cultural subtleties to make campaigns more relevant and evocative to the intended audience.
In their Southern campaign, they used the cultural understanding that the planning of a child’s education is a major contributor to life insurance, as they emphasized the purpose of preparation. In the East, it promoted the maintenance of a lifestyle as a core financial objective, which was communicated by a regional actor, Abir Chatterjee.
Another significant case of incorporating localisation of the entire customer journey and not advertising only is IndiaFirst Life. The widening media mix that the insurer does is being matched with a growing vernacular content footprint in an increasing number of states. In the case of large campaigns, it builds state-specific resources and partners with local stakeholders to increase visibility outside the urban regions. The firm has implemented a platform-first localisation approach, diversifying its website and self-service products into six regional languages, and aims to expand to thirteen.
Its IRIS chatbot and WhatsApp support initiatives have multilingual support options as of now, to enhance the clarity in the sign-up process. Subhankar Sengupta, the Chief Marketing Officer and Country Head, Alternate Channels, clarified that the genuine regional languages are always helpful in connecting the brand with the people, saying the real local content is what matters in the life insurance segment.
Vernacular content influence can be observed amongst mortgage lenders. The marketing of Aadhar Housing Finance, which targets mostly Tier 2, 3, and 4 consumers, is based on localisation of language and culture. Head of Marketing, Noel Mascarenhas, said that much of their promotional activity is regional in nature and all the customer-facing content, including operations literature, is simplified in regional languages. Aadhar considers vernacular material as cultural transcreation, not mere translation, and makes their message, which has its basis in six regional languages, speak in local idioms and familiar situations that reflect the small-town dreams, thus demystifying finance and establishing a sense of truth.
HDBfs is also capitalizing on local culture; this can be shown by its linkage with the Tamil Nadu Premier League, which first acted as its ATL campaign in the state. They also employed words such as Vetri Nichayam (Assured Victory) in Tamil Nadu and Jeet Pakki in audiences of North Indian origin, making sure that the basic message of assurance of success was natural and native to the communities. Anand Bhatia, the chief data and analytics officer, highlighted that effectiveness in communication depends on the genuine desire to talk to the customers in their language and within their cultural background.
Both the brands and agencies, such as Grapes Worldwide, where Co-founder and Global CEO Shradha Agarwal reported a 25 to 30% increase in vernacular investments, hold the view that regional storytelling is a much more effective way to enhance consumer familiarity, minimize product hesitation, and build greater trust.
Conclusion
The group experience that BFSI leaders went through proves the dramatic force of this vernacular transformation. The categories that will help most are ones, such as micro-loans, savings products, and insurance, that are highly dependent on credibility and clarity. IndiaFirst Life, in particular, reported a 16.5% increase in its Net Promoter Score (NPS) to 57, which the brand credits to its vernacular rollouts. Local languages have been confirmed by Mascarenhas of Aadhar Housing to speed up the decision-making process because consumers pose more knowledgeable questions and demonstrate greater confidence in loan conditions.
The industry-wide agreement is that consumers will always like to be served in a language that they are most at home in, and it is these cultural signals that are the backbone on which BFSI brands are finding it an easy task to make a substantial relationship and gain sustainable credibility with the local population.
Read the full article here