What Global Gaffes Can Teach You About Multicultural Advertising

Typos, Translations and Other Campaigns Worth Capturing
From Advertising Age Online

This article addresses typos and mistranslations in the realm of marketing and the effect it has on society. One example mentioned a company who created their own bilingual signage, announcing in Spanish that customers could use the "telephonos" to handle credit-card payments. The problem is that the Spanish translation of telephone uses an "f" as in "teléfono." When the company was informed of this mistake, instead of correcting it, they asked if it was understandable as-is and if it really was a big deal.

The sad thing is, I hear about instances like this happening a lot, especially as a designer. Our narrow minded society is often times too focused on what will make the most money that we aren't willing to invest in something that could in the end ultimately bring more income. Everything has become about instant gratification: what we can get right now without having to wait, without having to invest money, without having to pay when mistakes are made. We often try to take things into our own hands, like the company used in the example above.

While desktop publishing is a great, convenient resource, the problem is that there are so many individuals who don't grasp any concept of functional, let alone aesthetically pleasing, design. It seems easy enough to make some signs to hang up around the buliding, but it doesn't take long for ignorance to play a role. And the best part of the whole example above is that when the mistake was brought to their attention, the company didn't see the need to fix anything.

The author of the article makes a good point saying that we're quick to notice typos in the English language, but it's as if we just assume that those are the only typos that exist. For those who have learned English as a second language, it's easier to miss or overlook gramatical errors that seem to obvious to us. It works the same way with other lanuages too, though. Something can be translated correctly in a word-to-word context, but that doesn't mean it's the best way to convey that particular message. The question then becomes: how many companies are actually willing to seek and execute the best way to convey that message?