Key Principles for Principals Entering the International Marketplace
Last month we discussed the opportunities that exist by taking your products abroad. Although the U.S. is still the largest market in the world, many other emerging markets offer vast opportunities for the right products and marketers.
But before you run off to sell your latest product to India, take the time to verify the accuracy of your communications. If both rep and manufacturing principals do not carefully review what you are saying, you may find that your adventure to a foreign land turns out to be a failure.
Believe it or not many major corporations have failed to take the time to properly translate their names, advertising messages, packaging design and even the instructions that came in the product package.
Translation is not something that can be left to any computer or web-based translation program, since the best of these programs are only 90% accurate. I say “only” because, in terms of language and communication, that relatively small discrepancy can be — and often is — the difference between saying the right thing and saying something offensive to your potential foreign customers. Even U.S.-based translation companies can miss the meaning of a word or its relationship in context to the surrounding words due to cultural differences, colloquialisms (seemingly minute regional nuances) or religious connotations.
Being in the advertising industry, we have helped many of our clients translate advertising and packaging so they can sell their products to other lands. I can tell you that the best habit to adopt, if you can call it a habit, is “practicing” attention to detail. It seems obvious, but even huge companies with deep pockets don’t always hit the mark.
Let’s examine the oral care business. What could go wrong when selling the successful Waterpik overseas? Well, when the product made its way to Denmark, the manufacturer was surprised to find out that the word “Pik” in Danish means male genitals.
Now, certainly a company the size of Pepsi would have the resources to not make that kind of mistake, right? Well, when Pepsi rolled out in Taiwan, they used their familiar tagline, “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation.” Unfortunately, this catchy, Americanized piece of advertising translates directly to Taiwanese this way: “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead.” Sure, it’s still catchy, and it attracted a lot of attention, but it’s probably not what Pepsi had in mind.
Electronics giant Panasonic came out with a Japanese computer made for web browsing and licensed the cartoon character Woody Woodpecker to be the Internet guide. The instructions on the screen read, “touch Woody the internet pecker.”
Maybe you are thinking of starting your international adventure with our friends to the north. after all, Canadians are lot like us. That’s what some of the folks at General Motors thought when they began marketing the Buick Lacrosse in Quebec. No one bothered telling the guys in Detroit that Lacrosse is a popular slang term in Quebec for “self gratification.”
Continuing in Canada, the Hunt Wesson Company moved its popular line of Big John food products into Quebec with the direct translation “Gros Jos,” which translates to “Big Breasts.” Luckily, this product is aimed at men, and the name apparently did not hurt sales.
Baby food giant Gerber has a language problem in both Canada and France since the word Gerber in French means vomit. Beyond the brand name’s translation, Gerber faced an even larger cultural issue in Africa, where it is common to put a picture of what is in the jar on the label. and what’s on the front of the iconic Gerber jar? a photo of a cute little baby.
Don’t think that American companies are the ones making mistakes. When foreign companies enter the U.S. market, they make their fair share of gaffes. Imagine the surprise when Italian company Powergen built their English-language website for battery chargers only to find out people thought they were selling an industrial strength sex toy. How could this happen? Here is the web domain name they chose: www.powergenitalia.com, which stood for Powergen Italia. Funny, yes, but probably not the best move for a company trying to enter the relatively puritanical U.S. market.
One company was way too smart to fall into all of these language barrier traps, and they decided to communicate with universal pictures. So the Swedish Samarin, an over the counter remedy for upset stomachs, did just that.
Samarin used three simple drawings to describe their product. The first drawing was a man bent forward holding his stomach in pain. directly to the right of this drawing was the man drinking his Samarin, and on the far right was the man now standing upright and looking happy. Samarin company principals were drinking their own product by the gallon when their advertising campaign in the middle east was a spectacular failure. no one noticed an important detail about how people in the Arab world read: from right to left. Oops.
Although these are funny examples, they exhibit the need for every principal to be concerned about cross-cultural communication. If you don’t feel it’s your duty or expertise, then find someone who can make it their focus. It is impossible and, frankly, not a good use of an agency principal to review every piece of communication that leaves their office, or to know how cultures communicate differently. But it is the responsibility of the principal to put people in place who do practice the habits of highly effective communicators. Because when a marketing disaster takes place, regardless of where, you can bet that the blame will land squarely on the principal’s shoulders.
