WHY YOUR "NORTH INDIAN" ADS ARE BURNING MONEY IN KERALA

Here is a hard truth for every Bangalore or Delhi-based brand manager trying to crack the Kerala market:

Your ads feel foreign.

You hired a great agency in Mumbai. They shot a beautiful ad. High production value. Great lighting. Then you got a voiceover artist to dub the Hindi script into Malayalam.

And to a Malayali, it sounds like a robot reading a textbook.

The "Cringe" Factor

Kerala has a specific cultural radar for inauthenticity. We don't just ignore bad localization; we mock it. When we see a model who clearly isn't from here, pretending to be from here, the trust evaporates instantly.

You aren't just failing to convert. You are actively damaging your brand equity with every impression.

The Solution: Get Out of the Studio

Stop trying to "fake" local. Be actually local.

Take your product to Marine Drive in Kochi. Go to Lulu Mall. Put it in the hands of a real uncle in a mundu. A college student from Trivandrum. A techie in Calicut.

Let them speak in their dialect. Let them use words like "Polichu" or "Adipoli" naturally—not because a script told them to, but because they actually felt it.

One shaky iPhone video of a real Malayali loving your product is worth more than a ₹50 Lakh studio ad that feels fake.