GREY group’s campaign for Axis Bank aims to get the Indian Sign Language officially recognised

India is one of the most diverse countries in the world in many aspects, and one of them is the number of languages spoken in India. The most interesting and exciting part of India’s diversified linguistic culture is, that languages change every few kilometres.

To celebrate this distinct nature of our country, Axis Bank has launched a heart-warming campaign #23in23 that acknowledges the one language that Indians speak across borders: The Indian Sign Language. According to the 8th schedule of the Indian Constitution, there are only 22 recognised languages in India. The campaign aims to get the Indian Sign Language officially recognised as the 23rd language in 2023.

The campaign has been conceptualized by GREY Group, produced by Dora Digs, and directed by Puneet Prakash.

As a part of the ongoing campaign, the brand, with the help of Harshal Hariyani, has also re-released their latest films in sign language as they believe that communication should be OPEN to all. This is the first time in India an advertisement has been released in the sign language.

Nishanth Ananthram, Executive Creative Director, and Atul Pathak, Associate Creative Director – Grey, Bangalore, said ‘We wanted to capture this diverse linguistic culture for our campaign for Axis Bank when we discovered that there is one language that's commonly spoken in all places in India - The Indian Sign Language. When we met a sign language expert, Mr. Sitaram Chavan, he mentioned that every Indian speaks the Indian Sign Language for communication every day. This sparked the idea and helped us craft this campaign’

Anusha Shetty, Chairman and Group CEO, GREY group India said ‘#23in23 is not just a campaign, but a plea to the Government to recognize the Indian Sign Language as the 23rd recognized language of India’