“Design for Everyone”: Canva India’s Chandrika Deb on Localising Creativity and the Soul of ‘Dil Se, Design Tak’

Canva, a Series F design-tech company headquartered in Surry Hills, Australia, was founded in 2012 by Melanie Perkins, Cliff Obrecht, and Cameron Adams. Launched in 2013, Canva has grown into a global online platform that aims to simplify graphic design for everyone, from individuals and educators to small business owners and enterprises.

Canva recently launched the second edition of its campaign 'Dil Se, Design Tak' in India. This new campaign focuses on celebrating creativity in everyday life. One of the films features actors Dalip Tahil and Saloni Batra, telling a story about family reconnection through design. It highlights how Canva seeks to help users express themselves, connect with others, and make an impact.

The campaign spotlights Canva’s evolving suite of tools, including AI-driven features like Magic Design, Magic Media, and Background Remover, introduced as part of Visual Suite 2.0 earlier this year.

In a conversation with BrandWagon Online, Chandrika Deb, Country Manager- India, Canva. shed light on the brand’s marketing and localisation strategy, and how Canva is empowering non-professional designers across the country. (Edited Excerpts)

Can you walk us through the core idea behind this year’s edition of Dil Se, Design Tak? In what ways does the expanded narrative build on or differ from last year’s campaign? And how did the first edition perform, both in terms of impact on the brand and the kind of difference it created for Canva in India?”

In the second edition of Dil Se, Design Tak, the campaign, the idea we wanted to represent was that there's a designer in each one of us. Design, though we may not consciously think about it, is an integral part of our daily lives, whether in our personal lives, through things like what we share on social media or how we communicate on WhatsApp with family and friends, or in our work lives, through presentations, documents, or even the way we now use AI.

The core idea was to communicate that everyone is a designer, and that design is essential in both personal and professional contexts. We also wanted to showcase Canva as the perfect companion to fulfil creative and design needs.

That was the thinking behind last year’s launch, and this year, we’re extending that thought to reach more people and educate them that if you have any communication or design need, Canva can be your go-to platform. Whether it's for work or personal use, you can find comprehensive solutions with us.

What’s different this year is that the campaign is bigger and more ambitious. It takes our goal of building a truly local brand for India a step further. We want to communicate with Indian users in a way that feels most relevant to them, through content and messaging tailored specifically for India. This is a distinct approach from our global campaigns and reflects our commitment to localising meaningfully.

This year, we’ve gone beyond last year’s Hindi film. We’ve created films in multiple Indian languages, Hindi, Tamil, and Telugu, and are also dubbing them in Bengali, Marathi, Kannada, and Malayalam. The goal is to reach the majority of internet users in India in their preferred language and show that we understand their content consumption preferences.

Another new element this year is the introduction of two films centred around a character named Alia. She’s a woman who works in an organisation and also has a large family. The films follow her journey and show how she, her family, and her colleagues use Canva, both at home and in the workplace. These narratives highlight different use cases for Canva, which is a fresh approach compared to last year.

Finally, we’ve accelerated how we’re exposing users to these films. They’ll be available across platforms, YouTube, Meta, streaming platforms, and television. We want users to engage with content in their preferred language, on the platform they naturally use. Whether it’s streaming, TV, or YouTube, we aim to reach them in the language and space that fits best.

What channels and formats are you leveraging to distribute the Dil Se, Design Tak campaign this year? How do you typically approach budget allocation across traditional media and digital platforms? In this context, how relevant is Connected TV (CTV) advertising for Canva in India? How do you decide which strategy works best for a particular campaign?

Since we were quite early in our campaign last year, we followed a relatively simpler media strategy, running ads on YouTube and TV to reach users through those channels. This year, we're looking at a more holistic, integrated media strategy where we reach users through different touchpoints, digital platforms, podcasts, streaming services, TV, and essentially any medium that allows us to reiterate the messaging of how Canva can be a part of their everyday lives.

These are the key ways in which this year’s campaign is bigger and better. Last year, we reached about 100 million users. This year, our goal is to double that, to reach 200 million internet users.

We want to reach these 200 million users across different media platforms, including traditional media like TV, as well as other offline platforms we’re still exploring. However, since we're primarily targeting internet users, digital is going to be a significant focus. Whether it's streaming platforms or YouTube, we aim to be present across all key digital channels. The goal is to have a 360-degree media strategy designed to reach and engage this large audience base.

In terms of budget allocation, our primary goal is to reach users and engage them effectively. We understand that attention spans are low and people tend to scroll past ads. So, we prioritise channels where engagement is typically higher, where people actively choose to watch films and content. We focus our budgets on platforms that allow us to:

1. Find relevant users for our campaign and product.
2. Maximise reach across users who are relevant to us
3. Ensure users are watching content in a more engaged and attentive manner, rather than passively scrolling

This approach results in a balanced mix between traditional and digital media. While most internet users are primarily on digital, traditional media still holds strong, especially with the heavy language customisation we’re doing this year. We want to amplify that on TV as well, given its wide reach.

Digital platforms offer greater diversity, which is why we incorporate a wider variety of digital channels in our media mix.

Connected TV (CTV) advertising is highly relevant. We've recently run campaigns during the IPL using Connected TV and observed a significant rise in its adoption across Indian households. It enables us to reach users who are typically more engaged and watching content attentively, making it a strong part of our media strategy.

Our goal with channel mix is not only to diversify platforms but also devices—whether mobile, desktop, traditional TV, or Connected TV. We want to be present across all the devices users consume content.

How are you measuring the success or impact of this campaign? Is it brand recall, creator sign-ups, engagement, or something else?

Our overarching goal is to measure how many people we’re able to reach. That’s why the primary metric we track is reach. For instance, last year we aimed to reach 100 million internet users, and this year, as I mentioned, our goal is 200 million.

We believe Canva is a product relevant to everyone on the internet. Almost every internet user is engaging with social media in some form. We have a large base of creators in India who are actively creating content, a growing community of freelancers, one of the largest populations of small businesses, and education is a major segment for us; students and teachers are both online today.

Given how diverse and expansive our target audience is, nearly everyone online is a potential Canva user. So reach is a key success factor in evaluating whether we’ve effectively connected with these users through the campaign.

At the same time, we also look at engagement metrics, such as completed views and the efficiency of how we’re driving those views. These help us understand not just how many people saw the campaign, but how engaged they were with the content.

At an overall level, we also monitor the growth of our user base. Currently, India is Canva’s fourth-largest market in terms of user growth and monthly active users. Through campaigns like this, our goal is to rise to the top. So ultimately, we assess whether our marketing efforts are contributing to that growth and helping us expand our user base meaningfully.

Canva positions itself as a brand for everyone, from students and teachers to small business owners and non-professional designers. How is Canva localising its product, marketing, and messaging to effectively reach and support these diverse user groups across India, especially in regional and Tier 2–3 markets? Beyond messaging, what product-level initiatives are being taken to make Canva more accessible and relevant to local audiences?

Localisation is a core pillar of our strategy. We want to build a truly local brand and product for our Indian users. So, in our marketing efforts, the idea is to localise campaigns through language, creatives, and messaging strategies that are most relevant for Indian users. But it goes beyond just off-product experiences and communication, it’s also about what the user sees once they arrive on the product and whether that experience feels truly localised.

From the moment a user signs up on Canva, we aim to localise every touchpoint. For instance, when a new user lands on our homepage, their first interaction with the product, they’ll see content in their preferred language. We've localised the homepage into about 10 Indian languages.

Content is a major pillar of this localisation effort. Everything in our content library, templates, graphics, and photos is being localised. We're investing heavily in content around seasonal events like Diwali, Holi, Republic Day, and Raksha Bandhan, as well as other life occasions and life celebrations, such as Griha Pravesh. These are the kinds of moments where users often turn to visual communication, and we want to be there for all of them.

We’re also creating content around civic moments and civic areas like Swachh Bharat. To support this, we have a robust Creators Program, where we work with over 400 creators in India who bring their local insights and experiences to Canva. They help create templates and design elements that resonate with Indian users, and this has grown significantly since we launched the program.

Community is at the core of everything we do. Whether it’s students, teachers, or small businesses, we are heavily investing in partnerships to reach and support these user groups. We recently partnered with the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) to launch a teacher certification program. We’re also building partnerships with government bodies, accelerators, incubators, and startup ecosystem players to make Canva more accessible across different communities.

In education specifically, we offer ‘Canva for Education’, a completely free product for K–12 schools in India. Any teacher or student in this segment can access the premium version of Canva at no cost.

Beyond education, we’re exploring content partnerships to enhance our localised content library and ensure we’re meeting the design needs of Indian users.

Whether it's through product features, marketing, partnerships, or community-building, everything we’re doing is focused on localising Canva for India, to make it accessible and relevant to teachers, students, small businesses, and everyday users across regional and Tier 2–3 markets.

What are some unique creator behaviours or user needs you've observed in the Indian market that have shaped Canva’s content or platform strategy? How do these differ from global trends, and how has Canva adapted to meet them?

India's needs differ significantly from global trends, necessitating a unique localisation of Canva.

Firstly, India is a more mobile-first market. A majority of our users access platforms and products on their mobile devices, so it's crucial for us to ensure the mobile experience is seamless. We're heavily investing in the product to create the right mobile onboarding and engagement journey for Indian users.

Content needs are also entirely different. It's not just about language, though that's a key part. We recently launched our Hindi website to create experiences tailored specifically for Hindi-speaking users. This helps them find the right templates, design elements, and all the information they need in their preferred language.

But language is just one aspect. Unique occasions in India, festivals, life moments, and even the kind of presentations small businesses create, differ significantly from global markets. So, the use cases are distinct, and we’re investing heavily in content that reflects this.

Indian users are also heavy WhatsApp users and prefer sharing content on the platform. In response, we've launched templates for Good Morning messages and similar content, something we've not done in any other market. So, we’ve been focusing on optimising both mobile experience and content that caters to Indian use cases, sharing behaviour, and consumption patterns.

We have a vibrant, creative community that helps us deeply understand these user needs. We also invest significantly in researching local trends to stay up to date with what users are creating and sharing across platforms. That research feeds directly into our content strategy.

WhatsApp is a key example of India’s unique sharing behaviour, not common in many other markets, and we've heavily invested in this space. Another distinct behaviour is that users in India often prefer to download their content and share it across platforms, instead of sharing links.

For instance, in workplace collaboration, people might simply share a link to a document or design. But on mobile in India, users are more likely to download the content first and then share it on platforms like WhatsApp or Instagram. This has influenced how we approach the product experience, to make downloading and sharing as seamless as possible.

So, collaboration, both for personal and professional use cases, is quite different in India. We’re looking closely at how we can make that entire experience easier and more intuitive for Indian users. 

What are your key marketing bets for Canva India in the next 12 months?

We are heavily investing in marketing in India. As I mentioned, it’s one of our top markets, our fourth largest globally, so we believe there's still a long runway of users to reach. We will continue to invest significantly in marketing here. The idea is to find opportunities where we can gain exposure and reach more users.

We've advertised during Shark Tank and the IPL this year. We're focused on being present where our audiences are and reaching them at key moments when they’re consuming content. Our investments in India will only grow from here. Localisation will be critical to this journey. We’ve already taken big steps by launching campaigns in multiple languages and leveraging different platforms where our audiences are active. That’s something we plan to continue investing in, making our marketing increasingly hyperlocal for our brand in India.

We’re really excited about the growing demand and the rapid expansion of our user base. We've seen phenomenal growth over the past few years, and we're looking forward to reaching a wider audience and helping them integrate Canva into their everyday lives.

For upcoming occasions, whether it’s Diwali, Independence Day, or Republic Day, we always release localised content that users can create and share. That’s something you’ll continue to see from us. These moments are a key part of our content strategy in India.

Another area we’ll continue to focus on is AI adoption. Indian users are increasingly engaging with AI features and tools, so we’re looking at how we can localise that further in the coming months. Our Magic Studio features are currently localised in over 13 languages, allowing users to access them in their preferred language. We're excited to see greater uptake and to deliver more such experiences in the next few months. 

The campaign is launching across traditional media avenues, including television, cinema, and digital platforms, including YouTube, Meta, Snapchat, and Spotify and is amplified through creator partnerships, regional content collaborations, and hyperlocal activations that bring design closer to communities.

Watch the campaign here.

The second film will be released in the coming weeks. It takes place in a busy workplace where we see Aaliya again, now a millennial manager. She mentors Sia, a Gen Z teammate with bold ideas and a strong creative voice. The film shows the typical conflict between the two generations and how Canva helps them find common ground. It highlights the value of shared creativity and focuses on teamwork and collaboration.