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Why should
my new company consider requesting a
global cultural analysis of our new
name?
A number of
years ago most US companies targeted
their marketing mainly for the US, but
with the popularity of the Internet, the
decreasing tariff barriers to world
trade, and the fact that the competition
is engaged in global marketing, it has
become almost a necessity of survival
for most companies to market their
products with equal emphasis or selling
in other
countries. And the overwhelming majority
of the world's population speaks
languages other than English! Therefore,
for marketing effectiveness it is
important that your company or product
name not mean something embarrassing in
other languages.
It is also
important to bear in mind that other
elements in your marketing program may
also need cultural adaptation.
Collateral advertising materials
(graphic images, photos) always need to
be culturally adapted. The materials you
have for your US audience may not speak
to the international market in the same
way. For example, images of the American
West will have little or no meaning for
people in Asia.
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Which are
the most common languages spoken?
The six
most prevalent languages in the world
(in descending order) are: Chinese,
English Spanish, Hindi, Arabic, and
Russian. (When you are considering
ordering foreign brand analysis and you
are not yet sure where your target
markets will be, don't ignore Hindi and
Arabic - they may provide some surprises
about the name you are considering!)
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What does a
typical brand name, logo, or tag line
analysis reveal?
For the
countries/cultures you request, the
analysis will tell you if the name is
used by other companies in that country,
if there are any existing words in the
language that are the same or similar to
the proposed name, if the name will have
any special connotations in that
country, the imagery that it will
suggest, its suitability or red flags,
sexual, religious, political, or other
type of offensiveness, if it will be
difficult to pronounce or retain, and
its overall rating on a scale of 1 to
10. The analysis summary will also
reveal the overall acceptability of the
name.
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Who should
conduct the research?
The native
language analysts should be in-country,
or at least part-time residents of the
target region, and university trained in
linguistics, communication, sociology,
or a related human sciences area.
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I've been
told there's more than one version of
Chinese I need to consider for analysis.
Can you explain the differences?
When
ordering brand analysis or translation
for Chinese, there are both Traditional
and Simplified writing systems to
consider, as well as the two most
popular spoken languages: Mandarin and
Cantonese. Traditional characters are
used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore,
and in most overseas (outside of China)
communities. Simplified characters are
used in mainland China. Most of the
population you will market to speak
Mandarin, but Cantonese is the major
language in Hong Kong.
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Do I need
to consider several different analyses
for Japan as well?
No.
Although Japanese uses three different
alphabets as well as Chinese characters,
there is a single standard spoken form.
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What do I
need to order for India?
India has
over 1,500 spoken languages and
dialects, including 16 officially
recognized languages. The most common
are: Hindi, Bengali, Bihari, Gujarati,
Malayalam, Punjabi, Marathi, Tamil, and
Urdu. For all intents and purposes, you
can probably choose Hindi, Bengali, and
Tamil for much of India, but you will
also need Urdu if you are planning to
market in Pakistan.
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Are there
any special issues to consider when my
product name is written in Arabic or
Hebrew?
Yes, both
Arabic and Hebrew, for the most part,
omit the "points" or vowels in the
written form. The correct vowel sounds
are simply supplied by the speaker. When
transliterating a name that is not an
actual word from English to one of these
languages, the vowel sound may vary (for
example, "Agilent" could easily become "Agalant"
or "Agelint"). However, once your
product name becomes widely known, there
will be no confusion about the way it
should be pronounced.
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In
countries that recognize more than one
official language, what are the most
common languages I should choose for an
analysis?
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China:
Simplified and Traditional Chinese
(written forms), Mandarin and
Cantonese (spoken forms; see above
for more information).
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India:
several writing systems, many
languages; principal ones: Hindi,
Bengali, and Tamil.
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Indonesia: Bahasa-Indonesian, and
Sundanese
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Malaysia: Malay, Chinese, and Tamil
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Pakistan: Urdu, Punjabi, and Sindhi
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Belgium: French and Flemish
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Cyprus:
Greek and Turkish
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Luxembourg: French, German, and
Luxembourgian
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South
Africa: Afrikaans, English, Zulu,
and Xhosa
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Sri
Lanka: Sinhalese and Tamil
-
Switzerland: French, German, and
Italian
-
Thailand: Thai, Malay, and Khmer
-
Canada:
English and French
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What is the
difference between transliteration and
translation of a name, especially when
considering the markets in China?
Chinese is
an ideographic language rather than an
alphabetical one (as are languages in
the Indo-European and Semitic families).
Each Chinese character stands for an
idea that has no relationship to its
sound. In addition, Chinese is also a
tonal language in which four different
tones are used to differentiate among
words using the same sound. So, for
example, "ma" can mean "mother," "hemp,"
"horse," and "to curse," depending on
the tone used. Several possible
characters could be chosen to translate
a brand name that is spelled in the
Latin alphabet (for example, Coca Cola).
The company owning the name can decide
what meaning it would like to convey in
the translation, and then appropriate
characters are chosen that will have
that meaning. But it is highly likely
that the best translation will not sound
at all like the English name. In
transliteration, the aim is to choose
characters that sound closest to the
original brand name. The danger,
however, is that those characters may
carry a terribly inappropriate
connotation. (In fact, this is exactly
what happened with Coca Cola's first
marketing effort in China when the
characters selected mean "bite the wax
tadpole.") Thus, a brand name analysis
for the Chinese market should take into
consideration the possible consequences
of both a transliteration and a
translation and advise which would be
the better decision.
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Which are
the most popular languages for a
cultural analysis (for companies that do
not want to order as many as 30-40
analyses)?
There is no
general answer to this question. It
depends on the product and the likely
markets. If the Latin American market is
important for your product, effective
regional groupings would include at
least four Spanish analyses as well as
Brazilian Portuguese: 1) Argentina,
Uruguay, Paraguay; 2) Chile, Bolivia,
Peru; 3) Venezuela and northern South
America, and 4) Mexico and Central
America. Yes, it is possible to do one
analysis for Latin American Spanish and
another for Spanish for Spain - it
depends on how important this particular
market is for your product. For
agricultural equipment you will probably
want to include many Asian languages as
well as many southern European ones
(including Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece,
and other relatively minor cultural
groups); for telecommunications you will
probably want to include Israel, despite
its small size.
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