When writing ad copy, knowing it’ll be translated into a foreign language, you have to stay on your toes. Derrick Daye, with Branding Strategy Insider, shares some brand trivia which includes some of these gaffes:

In Spanish, Colgate can be translated into “Go hang yourself”

KFC translated it’s tagline “Finger lickin’ good” into Chinese for the first time and it came out as “Eat your fingers off.”

Pepsi translated it’s tagline “Pepsi gives you life” into Chinese and it meant “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave.”

Here are a few more …

Chevrolet’s Nova flopped in Mexico because it means “No go”

Similarly, the Ford Pinto failed in Brazil because Pinto is slang for “tiny male genitals”

A Parker Pen ad slogan, “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you” was translated for the Mexican market as “It won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.”

Frank Perdue’s slogan “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken” was translated into Spanish (Mexico) as “It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused.”

Let me tell you, I am DEFINITELY gun shy about translating our tagline “Go nuts”!

Go Ahead, Socialize ...

You’re driving down the highway and a mile up ahead on the other side of a tree you spot a small section of a sign…. The only thing you see is the side of a bright yellow curve…. You immediately pull over for lunch because you’re 100% sure you just found a McDonald’s restaurant. Did you need more brand input than that?… Nope.

Here’s a similar story (possibly urban legend); It’s told that the design of the curvy Coke bottle was based on the shape of a Cocoa bean but was created so that, even when the bottle is dropped and broken into small pieces, it’s still recognizable as a coke bottle.

Seth Godin calls this Brand DNA …€” while describing his experiences of hearing two notes of a Steely Dan song or seeing just the edge of a New Yorker magazine.

A Business Times article from Malaysia refers to the LACK of this type of brand reenforcement in the world of property developers…. Pillani Pillai, a Singapore brand strategist, says that it’s “typical for a property development firm to launch 5-7 properties at a time with NO consistency in naming”…. Conversely, Kaufman and Broad homes, here in the U.S. does create strong name and style brand consistency. For instance, when buying a home in California there is almost immediate recognition that you’re driving by a K&B development when you see just the entrance sign to the neighborhood or the roof line of one of the houses.
Is your brand strategy powerfully consistent? Do you have brand DNA?… How quick will people pick up on your unique offerings?…

Go Ahead, Socialize ...

What do these things have in common?:

• Your web activity logs
• Your last direct mail postcard
• Your last advertisement
• Google analytics
• A landing page on your web site

Give up? Answer: They’re all small pieces of your marketing mix but you’ve probably not integrated any two of them together!

Hugh Bishop (Chairman of British Direct Mail powerhouse agency Meteorite) commented in a Marketing Week article that the amount of data that is available, or can be collected (willingly) from the consumer, dramatically changes how marketing can be performed. He says:

With this knowledge comes the power, not only to find potential new customers but also to take them on a personal journey delivering the right messages at the right time, via the most appropriate media. And thanks to the new digital channel, all of this can be delivered in more cost-effective ways than ever before.

Unlike “pure” digital, the [Direct Marketing] industry can fuse who brands want to talk to, what they want to say and where and when it is best to communicate with consumers. This in turn enables the [Direct Marketing] agency to deliver individual and effective customer journeys.

So, it’s NOT about creating single point campaigns designed to sell or “pull.” It’s more about discovering who your audience is …€“ using objective data …€“ and then offering up an experience. Build a relationship with your audience members and you’ll be able to create evangelists, not just one-time buyers.

Go Ahead, Socialize ...

This tip comes from A-Ha Guy Allen Voivod …

Hot Blogging Tip: When you find your brain is overflowing with blog ideas and you’ve got a string of them just lined up and waiting to pour out…. Let loose!… THEN, before hitting that “Publish” button, change the time stamp on the last few so they appear over the next day or two instead of posting right away.

This fab tip will even out your postings, give your frontal lobe a much needed break and, if you find you’ve got still more ideas busting out of your cranium, you can simply change those time stamps again as needed.

Go Ahead, Socialize ...

Verbosity leads to unclear, inarticulate things.
…€” Dan Quayle

Go Ahead, Socialize ...

Here’s a story from ResumeMachine.com.

Recently we had a server glitch where an order was only partially processed and a wrong boilerplate follow-up letter was sent to the customer…. Needless to say this was verrrrrry confusing to the customer.

What was interesting was, like many customers that become irate (thank goodness we get so few), this person did NOT threaten to notify the Better Business Bureau, nor did he threaten to call his lawyer, nor did he even threaten to file a charge back with his credit card provider…. What he did threaten to do was to blog about this event!!! AMAZING.

I took a look at his blog and guesstimated what kind of reach and impact his post would have and it was significant…. He could indeed cause a lot of damage to our brand if he were to have posted his original thoughts and feelings…. We were able to rectify the situation with this customer by providing an extension to the service and a refund for the inconvenience of it all.

This realization of how he might use his blog as a weapon within a customer service situation didn’t change our course of action … we always strive to make the customer happy at any expense…. However, this certainly does change my perception of how a blog can be used by the consumer!

In this case we were lucky…. The customer let us know that his negative blog post was a potential recourse for him.

Question: How many companies don’t get that warning… … don’t provide the correct level of customer support, and then BAM, they get hit with a doozie of a blog post…. YIKES!

Your customer has a lot more power today than they had in the past!… Before, an angry customer, frothing and yelling at the front counter, could be heard by 3 people all the way over in aisle 11…. Now, they can be heard by 3 billion people around the world.
I hope this shifts your paradigm a bit.

Go Ahead, Socialize ...

Good friend and Radio Maven, Bill Phenix (WXRV-The River), told us about a new tagline for one of his clients - Powers Generator in Spofford, NH. The company is a full service generator dealer here in New England. Their new tagline is (as you’ve guessed by now); “Keep It On.”

Short, punchy, not too direct (regarding product/service), emotion based …. this all equals LOTS of tagline velocity. BRAVO guys!!

Go Ahead, Socialize ...