India's first multi-language Internet portal, Webdunia.com, has launched a national brand building campaign to achieve higher top of mind recall among Internet users in Indian languages. The campaign, unveiled on Aaj Tak, will support the major make-over in the areas of technology that Webdunia has undergone in the last 12 months as it aspires to be the country's largest portal.
"The next big surge in Internet adoption and usage will come from those who are more comfortable communicating in Indian languages, even thought they know English. The Webdunia TV commercial assures an average Indian that all is not lost for her," says Mr. Pankaj Jain, President and Chief Operating Officer of Webdunia.
Webdunia has pioneered the launch of Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu portals in late '90s and has now added portals in Bengali, Gujarati, Kannada, Marathi and Punjabi taking the total number of language portals to 9, the highest by a single company.
Talking about the investment, of over 1200 man months, to create software and content for the new portals to support email, e-greetings and search in Indian languages, Mr. Jain says, "In India, the early adopters of Internet were primarily English speaking who enjoyed reading and communicating in their own language. The second wave of growth came with Internet adoption by the users of Indian languages for whom English was a secondary language by choice. Through its new campaign, Webdunia is expecting a surge in its 2-million plus users by attracting those who know only an Indian language and exposure to English is minimal."
With these 9 portals, a majority of literate Indians can now view the latest news, sports, entertainment and astrology via Webdunia. The company will invest heavily in brand building over the next three years. The company is looking to invest about US$ 6-7 million during this period.
Webdunia now has a common contemporary look and feel and has had a major technology upgrade by migrating to Unicode. The 9 portals can be accessed on virtually any computer without downloading the language fonts. The company has also strengthened the search engine backbone so that users can search in their own language on both Webdunia.com and the World Wide Web.
Being early creators of language content and technology for global software majors (a la MSN, Yahoo) Webdunia used its unmatched expertise to strengthen its email service. Webdunia email service has now built-in ease of input in 11 Indian languages, seamless transmission and display on a recipient's computer screen. The email service is available in Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu.
"Our indigenous state-of-the art technology makes Webdunia one of the finest language emails not only in India but the world over," says Mr. Vinay Chhajlani, founder and Chief Executive Officer of Webdunia.com.
Webdunia follows the values of editorial and language integrity imbibed through its rich heritage of Nai Dunia, the 60 year old Hindi newspaper from Central India .
At a time when some of the vernacular Indian language newspapers and, therefore, the portals are diluting the language, Webdunia has built a pool of writers and journalists who are passionate about their language.
Webdunia's digital greeting cards are designed for diverse Indian occasions and capture the distinctive style of native art and form.
The TVC
The 60-second TVC shows an English speaking window shopper outside a jewelry showroom in whose hands a murderer thrusts a pistol and runs away. The window shopper stutters in before police and the judge (in English) that no one understands. He is handed death sentence by hanging.
Moments before facing the gallows, the window shopper says, Mein bekasur hoon. Upon which the judge lets him free. The voice over brings home the point that communicating in one's own language is easier (and perhaps life saving in this case). The supers introduce www.webdunia.com as India 's largest portal in 9 languages and its language email service, e-greetings and search.
Media
The campaign will run over the next 6 weeks in Hindi before it gets on to a sustenance mode with 30 second and 10 second adaptations. Language adaptations will follow in regional channels.
The TVC has been created by Webdunia's Indore-headquartered agency-Srijan Advertsing
About Webdunia
Webdunia, India's largest multi-lingual portal, offers quality content to the people of different religions, cultures and age groups. Nine Indian language portals of Webdunia offer channels like news from the world of politics, sports and human interest stories, Bollywood, Life-Style, Religion, Science, IT, Career, Astrology, Literature, etc. Live cricket commentary, ticker and Webdunia Poll are some other major highlights of Webdunia language portals.
Email service is available in 11 languages—Assamese, Bengali, Gujarati, Hindi, Kannada, Malayalam, Marathi, Oriya, Punjabi, Tamil and Telugu.
Headquartered in Indore, Webdunia Content and Technology development centres operate from Chennai, Indore and Thiruvananthapuram.
For media queries, please contact:
At Strategic Communications and PR Counsel
Sanjiv Kataria
+91 98100 48095
sanjiv.kataria@webdunia.com
sanjiv.kataria@gmail.com
At
Sandeep Sisodiya
customer.care@webdunia.net
