Fishy Chips

Fishy Chips

Advanced Topics in Marketing

Unit 2 Individual Project

April 1, 2008

Abstract

Knowing what you want your audience to know is very important before you advertise to them. Sometimes what you may say in one country could mean something different in another. Word association and pronunciation are very important to consider.

Fishy Chips

As companies are marketing there products, they really should consider whom they are marketing to and also what they want there customers to understand. Word association is different from one country to the next. Even though a company may say one thing in one country it may mean something in another. They really should have someone in the country that is receiving the information review it first so they are saying the correct thing. Saying the wrong information could really give a company a bad name and then leave a bad taste in customer’s mouth.

The first example is the COLGATE-PALMOLIVE industry. They advertised the Liquid Ajax. This was ok except the tag line they used was what gave customer a bad feeling in the German community. They were telling the audiences that this was something the really did not work. Because of the language difference, they did not realize what they were doing or saying to customers until it was too late. Even though they had an advertisement company reviewing the information, this should have been caught a head of time. This goes to show that even if you have a company that is doing the translations for you, you should still have someone from your end review it. This way there is no miscommunication and you do not ruin your business and word out on the street.

The next example is Anheuser-Busch, the US producer of Budweiser beer. For years while I was going up, they used the key slogan King of Beers. This was a big thing in the US because people could associate the tag line with them. I know my grandpa use to yell it out when he wanted a beer and this something we always heard. When Anheuser Busch went to Spain to grow there business, they had a problem with the way the word was translated by the copywriter. The word they used translated was Queen instead of using King. The copywriter should have taken a couple different avenues in trying to translate the words for them. This could have saved that slogan for them. I don’t think I hear this slogan very much any more on TV or radio.

The next example is Johnson Wax. The Johnson Wax Company decided that there product did so well in the US, they would expand there products in other areas. They went into Germany and changed there name from Pledge to Pronto. They knew that changing the name would require them to spend a lot of money however they were willing to take on this challenge. When changing the name, they also had to change the label, packing, and advertising. This would all cost more however they thought this was good for business. After the product did well in for the Dutch, they decided to take on The Netherlands. They then had to do the same thing as they did for Germany. This time when changing the name they chose Pliz. This word sounded good to them except customer did not like it. They apparently had to ask for the product instead of picking it off shelves. Customer thought the name was not pleasant to say so they decided to buy other products instead of this. Word association is everything for a customer. Sometimes it is better for company to put consumers in there places to make sure this is going to be the right idea for them. Sometimes, it is a good idea to even as people before promoting it to make sure consumers understand the product and also know how to say it correctly. The last thing companies need to do it to have consumers not buy a product. After all the money is spent to purchase what