Textappeal Blog

The News:

New facial-recognition technology created by NEC is currently being tested in Japan: interactive billboards equipped with hidden cameras that determine the gender and age group of people who pass in front of them. The goal is to display advertisements that are tailored to each individual, so that they are better suited to their interests.

So far, 11 railway companies have launched a one-year pilot project, and set up 27 of the high-tech advertising displays in subway commuter stations around Tokyo. Each billboard includes a built-in camera and flat-panel monitor. Information about age and gender is sent to an internal computer that picks an advertisement to display. The longer a person stands in front of the sign’s camera, the more accurate the choice. No information about individuals is stored, only generic statistics about age and gender.

Behind the News:

Given the high level of Internet penetration and long-standing familiarity with mobile Internet, interactive marketing technology is nothing new in Japan. But local privacy requirements are also higher than in most other markets. For instance Mixi, the local equivalent of Facebook, does not have a “wall-to-wall” function. Hi-tech individualized outdoor advertising can only be successful if it is clear that personal data is not captured.

The news:

On billboards in Buenos Aires, Argentina, next to the familiar red, white and blue Pepsi logo, there is an eye-catching spelling mistake: “Pecsi”.

The spelling change is accompanied by slogans promoting “freedom of pronunciation” (“el libre albedrio pronunciativo”) and “the beautiful democracy of pronunciation” (“la hermosa democracia pronunciatoria”).

A TV commercial features people saying the name in different ways. Pecsipedia, a free content wiki, lists over 1300 English words that are pronounced incorrectly in Argentina.

Given Spanish phonetics, “Pecsi” is easier to pronounce than “Pepsi”. More than 25% of Argentinians already said “Pecsi” when asking for a Pepsi, and many had been using this pronunciation for decades. Instead of attempting to correct the mistake, Pepsi decided to go hyperlocal and celebrate different ways of saying its brand name.

Behind the news:

While the rest of the world was left gasping, wondering what on earth Pepsi was thinking to change their iconic name, the brand seems to have got on the right side of Argentinians – and generated unprecedented buzz.

For decades, brands – often originating in the US – have spent billions enforcing message consistency across the globe, leaving little or no room for humour.

“Pecsi” deliberately challenges the premise of global standardization, and at the same time shows what many ex-pats know out of firsthand experience: that poking fun at oneself can be an effective tactic to change local perceptions and gain sympathy across borders.

THE NEWS:

Have you ever heard a child tell you that he will cut mean people into pieces, put the bits into bags and hide the corpses so that nobody will find them – just like his daddy does? This is how an ad on French radio begins, for the American drama series Dexter and Canal +. It was adapted from what was initially a successful print and outdoors campaign. Dexter, broadcast in France by the TV channel Canal +, features a sexy policeman during the day who is driven by an uncontrollable urge to kill murderers at night.

BEHIND THE NEWS:

Canal+’s intention with this ad may have been to trigger a sarcastic “not enough to shock me” reaction with a target audience that already knows Dexter, via content that mimics the black humour of the show. For those who didn’t know Dexter however, the sarcastic codes and references of the series were missing in the radio spot, and many listeners were genuinely shocked. Justifying death and violence by the fact that the victims are “mean” goes against the French law. A child’s voice talking about reproducing violent acts could contribute to the underlying minimization and trivializing of violence. At least that is what the Court held. The ad is now banned in France. Pushing local cultural limits is often an effective tactic for edgy brands to get attention, but pushing too hard can backfire.

The News:

Venus Williams, the world’s No.2 women tennis player, has successfully gained attention from all over the world by her appearance at this year’s French Open, not by her tennis playing (even though she won the match), but because of the outfit she was wearing. Williams, who also designs tennis wear, wore an original lacy corset-like dress in the spirit of the Moulin Rouge with flesh-coloured underwear underneath. Gasps of shock were to be heard from the courtside viewers each time her skirt flipped up during play, wondering if she was wearing underwear or not.

Behind The News:

Many of the news stories surrounding the infamous outfit have varied in their stance, but the same opposing opinions have turned up on news and sports website blogs. They mainly centre around Venus being a bad role model for their children. This is an odd viewpoint when the skin coloured underwear actually covered up more skin than the underwear that the majority of female tennis players usually wear. Even odder is that it is known now that her nakedness was an illusion and yet she is still labelled obscene.

Culturally, Venus has already broken conventions of the tennis world by becoming the first African-American No.1 tennis player. Even though she is now out of the French Open, after her subsequent loss to Nadia Petrova, Venus has had the personal victory of creating debate. Now people who may not have had any interest in the French Open or the sport of tennis before now have something to say about it. No one can deny that the whole incident can be nothing but a more interesting outcome than a strict win or lose result.

The News:

To reverse a drop in sales, Fanta has launched a new campaign with a compelling call to action: ‘Grab a Taste of Friday’.

The Coca-cola brand’s first global campaign in 5 years features a countdown to Friday clock on an ad screen in London’s Piccadilly Circus, and a variety of fun, engaging activities for a day that one brand executive calls “the beginning of the most enjoyable, less serious part of the week”.

Behind the News:

Celebration is an effective, universal way to generate interest in a brand. The type of celebration (and its date) will of course be different in different parts of the world. 

For instance, in some parts of the world such as Dubai, the last day of the work week is actually Thursday.

Fanta now has an interesting opportunity to shift the “Friday” promise across territories and engage non-Christian local markets.

More importantly, the effort confirms a global trend towards the use of active verbs in taglines (“do”, “get”, “come”, “make”…),that tend to get a larger number of consumers engaged with brand activities.

The News:

To promote edgy Devassa blond beer (“devassa” means “naughty” in Portuguese), the brand convinced Paris Hilton to be videoed partying non-stop for three weeks in Brazil.

Daily Youtube uploads got an enthusiastic following, and the event was amplified by media coverage of her more unguarded moments.

Devassa went on to produce a sultry TV commercial, with Paris in a short black dress, sensually rubbing a can of Devassa beer on herself, delighting onlookers who watch through her apartment window.

Behind the News:

While Brazil is known for its overt display of postage-stamp size bikini’s beaches, Devassa’s portrayal of a non Brazilian blond who is not on a beach, while relatively tame, broke cultural codes – and a local law which forbids associating beer with sensuality.

Actually many Brazilian beer ads feature woman in bikini, but they are always set on the beach. Brazil’s secretariat for Women’s Affair said ‘It’s an ad that devalues women-in particular, blond women. The problem is not a lack of clothing, but its sensual nature.”

The controversial buzz plays nicely into the brand’s goal of establishing itself as the naughty anti-establishment beer.

The News:

While “serious” brands such as Accenture and Gatorade dropped Tiger Woods like a hot potato when his extramarital affairs suddenly went public, the more edgy global footwear brand Nike took a calculated risk and stood behind him.

On the back of Tiger Woods’ emotional apology and return to the US Masters green, Nike aired a commercial that directly addresses his behavior and subsequent penitence. In the ad, the golf champion’s late father Earl returns from the dead and asks Tiger what he was thinking – and what he has learned.

Behind the News:

As experienced brand stewards know, use of celebrities in global advertising is a high risk – high reward proposition. In this case however, Nike’s risk is not as great as it seems.

Massive media coverage in the more English-speaking countries may have turned the champion into a temporary US brand liability, and Nike needed to address the issue head-on.

But in much of the rest of the world, where private life isn’t usually turned into a public affair, sex-scandal coverage simply raises awareness (as with Bill Clinton during his presidency).

As a brand that understands global markets well, Nike is well placed to reap rewards from the Tiger media reality show.

The news:

Last year the FT broke the story of outrage in India over the launch of a new Mont Blanc pen because of its name: “Gandhi”. Mont Blanc has now apologized and decided to withdraw the luxurious limited series.

Behind the news:

The withdrawal may be great news for pen collectors (only 241 pens were made, one to represent each mile Gandhi walked in his march to protest British colonial salt tax in 1930), but it is an unfortunate blip for the iconic French luxury brand, particularly in the vast Indian luxury growth market.

What is wrong in associating the exemplary history of Gandhi and the immaculate heritage of Mont Blanc?

Gandhi was an ascetic man whose spiritual life and revolutionary peaceful combat against British oppression turned him into a global hero and the locally revered father of the Indian nation.

France also has a revolutionary history of opposing tyranny and cherishes values of universal equality and justice for all. Just like Gandhi, France was locked in struggle with the British colonial empire. Before the launch, Mont Blanc was cautious enough to obtain formal permission from Gandhi’s great-grandson in exchange of 90,000 pounds, to be donated to a charity.

So what’s all the fuss?

First, a local issue:

Not only was Gandhi passionately opposed to the British colonial domination of India. He believed in frugality and opposed luxury as well as any commercial use of his name. Well-educated upwardly mobile Indians, the target market for luxury brands, may be attracted to luxury but remain acutely aware of this fact.

Second, a global learning:

The West and Western brands do not get to appropriate and dictate universal values anymore. The world may be flat, but we all want to be different! The trend is to assert local pride, values and asperities.

What’s the moral?

Any attempt by a global brand to use national symbols of pride and heritage risks damaging backlash, ESPECIALLY with the new powerhouses of the world such as China, Brazil and India.

Here are 3 tips tongue-in-cheek tips from the past year’s cross-cultural leanings for brands interested in China, Brazil and India.

1. China. Don’t make fun of Mao, or pretend to be Chinese when you are not.

2. Brazil. Don’t eco-preach about the Amazon Forest or make a clichéd display of outrageous sexiness (Google “Paris Hilton and Brazil” if you are curious about this one).

3. India. Whatever you do, don’t mess with Gandhi.

Times change. What might seem obvious points to us today, with 20/20 hindsight, were not just one year ago.

The lead story in a major media outlet in the UK, Skynews, features citizen outrage against McDonald’s.  Skynews reports that a single word in a McDonald’s ad has provoked incensed debate and outcry. It is not an insulting or offensive word, and looks like a perfectly innocent choice by McDonald’s. But online chat rooms are buzzing with indignation.

The TV commercial promotes the Pound Saver Menu, and begins with the phrase “the pound, also known as a bob”.

A bob is slang for a shilling (one twentieth of a pound), which was eliminated from the British monetary system in 1971 (a pound is a little more than a dollar or a euro).

As someone ironically posted:

  “I suspect the nearest it (the commercial) got to the UK before transmission was when it was dreamed up in an English themed pub in Hollywood.”

Others have demanded that McDonald’s serve them twenty burgers for one pound.

But language does evolve, and it can be argued that today a few people actually do call a pound a bob.

McDonald’s spokesperson swiftly responded to the outcry: “Although a ‘bob’ was formerly used as a slang term for the shilling until the introduction of decimalisation in 1971, research has shown it is now more commonly used as slang for a pound or money in general.”

BEHIND THE NEWS

What’s the big deal? With vegetarian burgers in India and locally farmed meat in France, McDonald’s has worked hard to be a culturally sensitive company and a good local citizen. But don’t worry — the brand is unlikely to be damaged, and the debate provides valuable free media space for the “one pound” offer. Perhaps Skynews didn’t have any other headline news that day.

Still, this is a good reminder of three important cross-cultural facts:

1.    People DO NOT like it when their language is misused, even slightly, by big foreign companies. It can be felt as insulting to their sense of national pride. After all, we spent years at school struggling to master our language’s unlikely grammar and vocabulary. And now some giant from abroad tells us how to speak! Never mind that local brands mix up their words and grammar all the time.

2.    We tend to be most sensitive when the one making the mistake is our neighbour or shares a common language. An Austrian Marketing Director once said to me, tongue-in-cheek: “the Germans speak the same language as us, minus the humour”. And we all know the saying “America and Britain are divided by a common language.”

3.    Would “Consider Different” have had the same impact as Apple’s “Think Different”? Would the BMW campaign work as well by promising “Happiness” rather than “Joy”? As every advertising copywriter knows, a single word CAN make a world of difference – whatever the language.

As this blog demonstrates, global brands sometimes shoot themselves in the foot because they do not take local culture difference and sensitivity into account.

However there is such a thing as being TOO oversensitive.

Google’s strategy in China has been to portray the brand as completely Chinese. This “when in Rome do as Romans do” tactic has now gravely backfired.

Facing the well-established, dominant Chinese search engine Baidu, not only did Google adjust to local censorship requirements. It dressed itself from head to toe in local clothing.

First Google translated its name to mean “Valley Song”.

Then it used refined Chinese calligraphy and even traditional Chinese poetry in its advertising.

If you didn’t know, you would have thought Google is Chinese.

Google turned a blind eye to two cultural facts.

1. There is very high sensitivity in China to foreigners “stealing” Chinese culture, due to colonial history and a fierce, renewed sense of patriotism.

Baidu swiftly countered Google’s advertising with a violent but effective patriotic commercial.

It portrayed a “wild west” dressed American (representing Google) in an intense calligraphy competition against a genuine Chinese master (representing Baidu). The Chinese master wins, showing the American for what he is – a fake.  The American spits blood and falls dead, to the delight and cheers of the Chinese audience.

2. You cannot underestimate the importance of the Chinese government.

When you say a company is “good”, it is generally NOT understood to mean “it does no evil”, but simply that it is approved by the government.

The government portrayed Google’s efforts to digitalize Chinese books as a foreign attempt to steal Chinese heritage – again undermining Google’s attempts to look like a “good Chinese company”.

The result

Today, after all Google’s efforts, Baidu retains more than 70 percent of the Chinese market. Its brand is severely damaged in the biggest growth market in the world.

Although there may be a genuine plot to sabotage Google, it may be that the search giant’s “threat” to pull out of China is a mask for commercial and cross-cultural failings, and possibly a counter-tactic to put pressure on the government.

It will be fascinating to see how “Google vs. China” plays out.

In the meantime, it is worth remembering one fact: going completely local may not only betray your international brand’s DNA, it is also a high risk cultural strategy that can easily backfire.