Regional news: India’s advertising frontier goes hyperlocal

News in India isn’t merely content; it's context, culture, and community. With 22 official languages, over 700 districts, and deeply rooted regional behaviors, Indian news is hyperlocal by design.

The country’s print media has seen significant growth, with the total number of registered newspapers and periodicals reaching over 146,000 by 2023, according to Statista. These publications are printed in over 200 languages, reflecting the country's diverse linguistic landscape, notes The Media Ant.

A significant majority of these publications serve specific regions, with Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state, having the highest number of registered newspapers, at 15,209.

These statistics reflects not only what people consume, but what they believe and trust. For brands, this presents a unique opportunity to plug into India’s living, breathing news ecosystem with tailored, contextual storytelling at scale.

For advertisers, this presents a powerful opportunity. Rather than viewing news as a risk to avoid, it’s time to recognise it as a rich, narrative-driven channel where brand storytelling can be engineered to unfold in alignment with local rhythms and cultural cues.

News as neighbourhood narrative

In India, news functions like a mosaic of regional storytelling networks rather than a uniform media stream. For many in the country, regional newspapers remain the primary source of information because they report in the language most familiar to their readers—the mother tongue.

The strength of these publications lies in hyperlocal coverage, from neighbourhood developments to community concerns, areas often overlooked by national dailies. This close-to-home approach fosters a sense of trust and attachment that broader publications struggle to replicate.

Beyond news, these papers double up as community hubs, carrying reader submissions, personal announcements and classifieds, including matrimonial listings. Publications such as Dainik Jagran in Uttar Pradesh, Eenadu in Andhra Pradesh and Malayalam Manorama in Kerala, are identity anchors within their respective communities. The stories they share are rooted in daily life, regional pride, and community relevance.

This structure offers advertisers naturally segmented, highly engaged audiences organised by language, geography, and interest. But unlocking its full potential requires a shift in perspective from thinking of news as content to advertise around to thinking of it as context to advertise within.

By aligning creative to regional narratives, whether it’s a festival, weather update, local sports victory, or state election, brands can meaningfully embed themselves in the everyday discourse of India’s consumers.

Localisation as strategy, not translation

India’s media market is one of the most linguistically and culturally fragmented in the world. Over 70% of Indian digital users prefer content in their regional language, making localisation a critical pillar of any successful advertising strategy.

According to a CRISIL analysis released in July 2024, regional print players in India are poised for an 8–9% revenue rise in FY2025. The upswing is expected to be fuelled by a 9–10% jump in advertising income alongside a 2–4% lift in circulation earnings. Automobiles, FMCG, education, e-commerce and property continue to anchor ad demand, while vernacular publications retain their widespread appeal.

News environments offer unmatched contextual relevance, often shaped by local events, emotions, and cultural moments. A political event in Mumbai may evoke a different public mood than one in another city, for example. And the same holiday can be celebrated with entirely different customs and consumer behavior depending on where it takes place in the country.

Effective advertising in this context means designing messages that can be flexible across regions and respond to the emotional tone of each locale.

Programmatic with a local twist

Programmatic advertising is what makes this hyperlocal engagement scalable and provides the backbone for real-time personalisation across India’s diverse landscape.

Tools like dynamic creative optimisation, geographical targeting, and contextual ad placement enable brands to serve regional messages to their desired audiences.

For example, a brand advertising winterwear in northern India versus southern India would naturally want to display different visuals, languages, and messaging. Programmatic can help facilitate this execution seamlessly.

But for this to work effectively, localisation must be baked into strategy. Creative, messaging and media plans should be designed with regional flexibility from the outset.

Despite the opportunity, many regional publishers in India still lack the infrastructure for advanced programmatic monetisation. This limits advertiser access to high-value local inventory and restricts the monetisation potential for publishers themselves.

To overcome this, advertisers and tech partners must invest in training and enablement for local publishers on programmatic best practices. They also need to collaborate with SSPs to build paths to curated, transparent inventory.

Moreover, they need to support collective infrastructure that elevates smaller regional publishers. Building out this programmatic backbone will ultimately help reinforce an ecosystem of cultural relevance and trust in local journalism.

The next 500 million consumers

India’s next wave of digital users will emerge from Tier 2, Tier 3, and rural areas. These are audiences who primarily consume content in local languages and on mobile devices. Regional news platforms are often their primary windows to the world.

Programmatic can enable brands to move beyond urban, English-speaking audiences and engage audiences in these emerging digital markets with efficiency. However, success here requires attention to nuance. It’s not enough to translate a campaign into Hindi.

What’s needed is a culturally attuned strategy that reflects regional aspirations, social realities, and communication styles. Brands that invest in messaging and media channels stand to build deeper resonance and reach.

By pairing programmatic precision with a localised strategy, brands can tap into the emotional heartbeat of communities to deliver key moments of connection. The future of advertising in India’s news ecosystem is not about louder messages; it’s about smarter, more resonant narratives, which start with the rhythm of the local news cycle.

- Gavin Buxton, managing director, Magnite, Asia