Visual Storytelling Techniques for Indian Brands: Typography, Motion, Identity

Brand Identity and Visual Communication are the core elements of a brand’s marketing campaign. People associate a brand with its logo or tagline; the brand image leaves a permanent impression in their minds forever. To create such an impact, visual storytelling plays a vital part in the brand’s campaign. It could either make or break a brand.

Therefore, a lot of thought and effort are put into these storytelling practices. In the Indian business market, brands have to consider and follow certain techniques in telling their stories and designing their identities.

Here are some of the essential visual storytelling techniques for Indian brands:

1. Cultural Relevance

India is an ancient civilization where culture runs deep, deeper than possibly most other cultures. The people here are equally rooted culturally and have deep emotional attachments to them. Therefore, to tap into the raw Indian market, it is important to keep an advertisement, a campaign, a branding, or even a logo design, culturally relevant.

Take the Havells advertisement, where they displayed certain Malayali people celebrating Pulikali, a Tiger dance from Kerala. In this commercial, a man dressed up as a tiger was fighting another man with a flamethrower. He was using his tail, made out of Havell’s wires, to deflect and nullify the flames. This aligned directly with their tagline, ‘Wires that don’t catch fire’, thus promoting their brand.

Cultural relevance also varies from one region in India to another. Therefore, brand creatives need to be extremely sensible and extra careful while putting out a campaign. The flip side to being a deeply cultural society is that one could also end up on the wrong side, mistakenly. This could offend people, especially certain communities and religions. Take Jawed Habib’s salon ad in 2020, which depicted images of Hindu Gods. It immediately faced tremendous backlash from religious conservatives. Cultural relevance remains a vital component of visual storytelling among Indian brands.

2. Emotional Connection

Indians are generally known to be very emotional in their response. Whether that is a stereotype or not is unclear. It is true that emotional advertisements and storytelling easily tap into the Indian market. If done well, they find an audience like no other. Brands have often opted for emotional stories rather than quirky, witty, or funny stories. It’s mainly because they leave a deeper impact on the consumer’s mind than just making them smile. Emotional ads are more memorable.

Take the Cadbury Dairy Milk advertisements, for example. In one ad, they hired veteran actor Waheeda Rehman to play a grandmother sitting at the dinner table with her entire family. With the kids and parents there, she cracked a light-hearted joke at the dinner table, which created a wholesome, lovely moment within the group. It was an emotional ad for anybody missing their family, or those moments they spend with them.

Fevicol advertisements do the same by bringing real-life stories from rural India to the forefront. They are both emotional and delightful, and display the brand’s creative prowess. These ads have remained a mainstay favorite among Indian customers for many years.

3. Authenticity

While this should be a Universal technique that brands must adopt to tell compelling stories, it becomes especially imperative in the Indian context for a main reason. The diversity in terms of finances, cultures, traditions, lifestyles, knowledge, and other customs in India is vast. From the poorest of slums to the richest of towers, from the most traditional earthen homes to the concrete buildings, etc., India has a broad range of stories to tell. Therefore, it becomes very important that those stories are told genuinely and authentically to shed light on various communities and minority groups.

Take Tanishq’s ‘Remarriage ad,’ which challenges societal norms and ends on a bright, positive note. It is about a dusky-skinned woman, a mother of a daughter, remarrying. The ad shows love in all its forms, promotes inclusivity, and celebrates diverse family structures. The story was told from the perspective of the bride and the happiness she must’ve felt on that day.

Another stunning example of ‘Authentic Storytelling’ was when Google India roped in Shyam Saran Negi to highlight the importance of voting amidst all adversity. Shyam Saran Negi was independent India’s first voter, and roping him in the advertisement was a deliberate move by Google India. In the ad released in 2014, Mr. Negi, then 97 years old, was speaking about how important the voting day is. He walked across rugged, snowy terrains to cast his vote, amidst a fanfare by some people. This was a brilliantly authentic and impactful ad by Google India.

4. Typography & Narratives

A lot of the time, in creating impact, typography and narration work in tandem. Take Brooke Bond’s Taj Mahal tea ad, where the great late tabla player Zakir Hussain popularized the phrase, ‘Waah Taj’. The iconic Brooke Bond logo, with a red and green background and a sun, along with the font of Taj Mahal written over it, created an unforgettable experience for people who saw the ad with Zakir Hussain saying, ‘Waah Taj’. The typography, logo design, and narrative together created this impact.

Another series of iconic storytelling by a brand is Amul. Amul Taste of India ads have tapped into the niche manner of putting out a visual story whenever something iconic happens around the world. Any newsworthy item is covered by Amul stories, and they have become a talking point in themselves. It’s done in the typical Amul ad manner, with its iconic typography, font, and image. The ads also play on words, often creating a pun. Some examples include ‘Baahuballebaaz’, ‘O Captain, Mahi Captain’, ‘Sabr ka Imphal Meetha Hota Hain’, etc.

These are some effective techniques Indian brands employ to grasp the attention of the public. Some other iconic examples would include the ad campaign ‘Fogg Chal Raha Hain,’ ‘Dream 11’ and their iconic campaigns, the CRED advertisements that evoke nostalgia with veteran cricket and movie superstars, and Nykaa’s pink shades in its branding that conveys femininity and empowerment. There are countless examples of brilliant storytelling techniques by Indian brands, each with a sense of purpose, with a sense of attachment, and with an urgency to evoke certain emotions. This is the way to create Brand Identity.

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