Image Credit: Image by Firmbee from Pixabay
What a year! As we are all set to bid farewell to not the so the ordinary year 2021, we are awash in unforgettable memories and unbelievable milestones like Survival. There are no qualms that during the entire lockdown amidst Covid, the content of all kinds helped the entire world to keep depression minimal. Surprisingly, the phase of pandemic led to an unforeseen dramatic transformation in the way content is being created and consumed.
Remember “Gangnam Style” by PSY in 2012 that led to an unanticipated pop culture shift while gaining unprecedented international recognition? Despite being vernacular music content, this video went on to
become a global phenomenon with countless homage videos in Gangnam style being posted to YouTube right after its release. Undeniably, this song which is sung primarily in the Korean language played a pivotal role in building a rock-solid foundation for the emergence of the vernacular content trend by proving that a song does not need to be entirely in English to experience a contagious worldwide success.
Vernacular Content Trend: Just A Bubble Or A Dark Horse?
The content ecosystem is currently standing at crossroads with relevant technologies becoming more and more sophisticated with time and the emergence of unforeseen content trends. The content landscape is witnessing an upward swing in the gamut of fragmentation owing to the shift in consumer mindsets and wider sociological factors. The same is ultimately driving a massive impact on the entire approach we research, consume and share the content. In the wake of the Culture economy seamlessly merging with the Digital economy, the crowded content landscape is cultivating a trend of short attention span compelling content ecosystem to undergo a never-before transition. Indeed this laid the foundation for one of the recent trends from the content ecosystem to gradually emerge in the form of the rise of “Local Content”.
Coming back to the domestic “Content Ecosystem”, the success of native language Hindi YouTube content creators like Bhuvan Bam who launched BB Ki Vines in 2015 dropped an apparent clue that vernacular content is going to rule the roost in the content ecosystem in forthcoming times. Thereafter the rise of yet another vernacular YouTube content creator Amit Bhadana startled everyone by outperforming BB Ki Vines in the context of popularity who started publishing content much later than BB Ki Vines. People from two-tier to
three-tier cities found more relatability with his strong North Indian accent and his content empowered with a message devoid of any foul language. His success has compelled even Bollywood to ride on the wave of his popularity owing to his massive cult following that stands staggering 20 million subscribers. A-liter celebrities like Ajay Devgan and Akshay Kumar have already created content with Amit Bhadana to strategically promote their movies.
Nevertheless, I do not intend to indulge in BB Ki Vines/ Amit Bhadana’s comparison. I simply intend to prove the point that vernacular content has already started setting new success benchmarks and with time, the recognition of local content creators and influencers are going to increase more out of the building authentic engagement.
What Comes Next?
Talking about a developing country like India which is the home to approximately a 1.3billion people, vernacular content was bound to emerge as an inevitable latest trend in the content ecosystem. So, when I iterate again I truly mean it: Local Content is positioned to be the ultimate next big trend in Content Ecosystem creating new-fangled opportunities for local influencers striving to win the race by building a loyal cult. The popularity of diversified vernacular content creators has already proved it up to a great extent. It is no wonder that even the most resourceful brands from all industry verticals encompassing OTT platforms are now jumping on the bandwagon of leveraging the trend of local content. By deploying proven content strategies like paid partnerships or collaborative content with the “LocalInfluencers” who enjoy a decent fan following across social media platforms and can deliver the content most.
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