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51.8%ANMag Issue 22 Public Surveillance
Lost in Global Translation?
By Naseem Javed, Contributing Writer
Toronto, Canada − What are customers around the world saying about the new booming Middle Eastern brands? What are they reading in the brand-names? Which ones are they loving and talking about? Which ones can they pronounce, type, and remember easily? Are these new local brands leading the charge for global mindshare, creating the presence of greatness, or are they seriously lost in global translation?
Currently, 99% of mega Middle Eastern projects are being branded under Arabic-based names, which are mostly foreign to international audiences, while some are projecting mixed messages due to translation, imposing very serious limitations to brand name appreciation, and thus prolonging high costs in obtaining global mindshare.
To appreciate this dilemma, unless you are fluent in Japanese, try to make sense out of a fancy scripted Japanese name with some deeply rooted cultural message with rich heritage. For this reason, over half a century ago, the global image-savvy corporate Japan developed all major brand names based on international rules of translations, negative connotations and pronunciations which fitted mass global appeal, making the names easy to talk about, spell and remember. Contrary to belief, on global branding, America really provided the largest battleground for branding, as it was the Japanese that truly laid the systematic foundation on what makes globally accepted and universal name-identities fit enough to conquer global image.
Decades ahead, Japan was on the forefront of creating global brands, like Toyota, Minolta, Sony, Pentax, Sharp, Panasonic, Canon and hundreds of other five-star standard names, as names originating from Japanese language would have never allowed such global acceptance. Surprisingly today, China is caught into too many local language based name-brands that seriously inhibit internationalization of the name-identity. Very bad for a country that is now recognized as the world's largest factory, and by now, would have easily claimed hundreds of globally popular names. India currently sits in the middle. Being more open to non-local-language-naming, it is now on its way to becoming the next global powerhouse of domestic brands.
In order to truly benefit with these global intricacies and having a vision to acquiring universal name identities, one must bite the bullet first and be open to a frank and candid boardroom-level discussions in micro detail, a process demanding a commanding knowledge of global business naming procedures, corporate nomenclature and many other different skills unheard of in the traditional logo-centric-slogan-happy branding process.
After all, the prime objective of any brand name is to spread its wings and fly in expanding markets, something only possible when names are without extra luggage. As for Arabic naming, currently in the Middle East, the traditional long branding process ends in an Arabic name, often starting with the letter "A", a most intricate logo with colorful schemes, something extremely difficult to appreciate or decipher on the global markets. Any assembly of the top 50 names and their logos would clearly spell out the global challenges facing this process. Does this now mean that we should abandon Arabic words or start discussing prospects for depending on the letters "B" or "C"? Not at all. It means we should be aware that the alphabet of each language has hidden characters, strengths, weaknesses and related trends; it is not a simple question of the cut-and-paste solution of inserting letters into famous or already-existing name brands.
Naming from the English Dictionary has also been a common problem in the West decades ago. At one time, there were hundreds of companies in the U.S. called Dynamic, Quantum, Prism or Rainbow, as they sounded so powerful and fresh, but they eventually died out due to worldwide name confusions. Furthermore, global e-commerce and the use of digital branding for domain names clearly point to a serious need for highly-specialized skills.
It is also very important to note that despite the seeming dominance of English, there are some 2,700 different languages with 8,000 dialects around the world. Altogether, there are 12 important language families with 50 lesser ones. Indo-European is the largest family in which English is the most important category. Based on usage by population, the following is a list of major languages in descending order: Chinese, English, Hindustani, Russian, Spanish, Indonesian, Portuguese, French, Arabic, Bengali, Mali and Italian.
"Nay" is yes to Greeks. The American "yeah" means "no" to the Japanese. A simple laugh -- "ha, ha, ha" -- means "mother" in Japanese, while "Ohio" means good morning. In Russia, "looks" means "opinion" and "socks" means "juice." In France, a simple sign of "sale" means "dirty." To the British, long distance is a "trunk", sister a "nurse" and elevator a "lift." The Chinese word "mai" said in a certain style means to "buy" and in another style to "sell." When enunciated together, "mai mai" means "business." The simplicity turns into complex marketing challenges. Global understandings of these issues are pre-requisites in achieving a globally acceptable name-identity.
Recommendations:
We all better be wary of language issues; customers are no longer simply local to your streets; they are scattered all over the globe, local to their own streets, yet still somehow connected together. The next branding challenge for the Middle East is to acquire a deeper understanding of universal image and identity management.
Best, conduct a highly professional third-party-nomenclature-audit; businesses convinced that that they have the best and well-known name-identity are often surrounded by their own people, current customer base and current markets. The real challenge is to measure the unknown customer base at large, new and untapped territories and unheard-of connotations and language issues and where the name is either being rejected or taken as too confusingly difficult, therefore not worthy to be remembered at all. If the ultimate goal is to acquire globally recognized name identities, then name personalities are only good when they are liked and understood by the global audience. So why stay lost in global translations?