Hasbro launches Monopoly Deal in Hindi to increase its footprint in Bharat

• In a bid to go deeper into the Indian market and also to show support to PM Narendra Modi's call to toy manufacturers to make in India, American toy brand Hasbro has launched a Hindi variant of its popular card game Monopoly Deal.
• Its aim is to reach out to a larger audience in India by making their games more accessible to a larger set of audience.

It was last year when Prime Minister Narendra Modi had spoken about the Indian toy industry to become self-reliant. While speaking recently at India’s first Toy Fair 2021, PM Modi again stressed on the need to not just make the toy industry aatmanirbhar and increase its share in the global toy market, he also spoke about a government initiative to help increase the presence of domestic toys globally.

This clarion call has not only encouraged local players to up their game, even international players are ensuring they manufacture more and more toys in India.

In our last conversation with Bhavesh Somaya, Country Manager – South Asia, Hasbro, the makers of massively popular games like Monopoly, Jenga, Connect 4, Cluedo and Twister, Somaya had shared the company’s plans to ensure that more than half of the products domestically sold are manufactured in India in the next couple of years. He had also spoken about how Hasbro is dedicatedly working on localizing their offerings.

Keeping in line with these plans, on the occasion of World Monopoly Day celebrated today, Hasbro announced the launch of a Hindi variant of its popular card game, Monopoly Deal.

Speaking about the brand’s continued focus to make in India and make for India, Lalit Parmar, Commercial Director – India, Hasbro said, “In line with our commitment to come up with more localized offerings, we have come up with a Hindi version of Monopoly Deal. Its a landmark initiative for Hasbro in India because it has been completely made in India and for India. It’s the first game to have completely been designed locally.”

The instructions on the cards are in Hindi, and the cities mentioned on the cards are all Indian too.

With the launch of this vernacular variant, the brand aims at going deeper into Bharat. “We are really excited about this because it gives accessibility to a large set of audience in India who are more comfortable with Hindi as a language. So this helps us increase our footprint and gives us the opportunity to interact with a much broader set of audience,” he added.

The brand plans to dial up activation and marketing in central and northern India. It will be associating with the Hindi press to reach out to its target audience. The brand also plans to go the influencer marketing route to build some excitement around the offering. “We're also going to dial up innovative ways to display the product and branding in retail stores,” he shared.

On whether they are planning to launch their games in other languages too, Parmar said that they will test the waters with this launch and then take a call of whether they want to extend it to other languages.

The toy manufacturer is also bringing a global game Monopoly Bid to India. This game is also being manufactured in India.