Breaking the language barrier: Alex Woodruff and Vanessa Cisz in englishtalk's Stuttgart offices.
Interesting discussions in the land of wild boar
What separates true entrepreneurs from the wannabes? I suspect it’s an uncanny ability to spot an opportunity or niche in the market and act quickly to fill it. That’s exactly what marketing consultant Alex Woodruff did when he founded englishtalk (www.englishtalk.net) – a business that assists German advertising agencies and corporations to promote products and services more effectively in the UK, US and other English-speaking countries around the world.
I travelled to Southern Germany recently to meet Alex and his colleague Vanessa Cisz, who oversee the englishtalk operation. Their offices can be found in an attractive suburb of Stuttgart, where German football coach Jürgen Klinsmann’s family runs a traditional konditorei (http://www.klinsmann.us/bakery.htm) and wild boar roam freely in the local woods. Once Alex and Vanessa are checking their e-mail, however, the romance of the countryside soon gives way to hard work. Englishtalk is linked with a number of leading businesses in the regions of Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria, but actually has clients as far north as Hamburg.
Often deadlines are tight and it’s not unknown to work into the night when an ad agency is preparing a pitch for new business. Certainly the service on offer – colloquial adaptation of translations, or the creation of bespoke marketing materials by native English speakers – is essential for marketers and advertisers. From a creative perspective, there are huge dangers in relying on a straightforward translation from one language to another. Even good linguists may miss subtle nuances. And it’s often at this subliminal level that advertising and marketing material actually works. Alex and Vanessa, who hail from England and America respectively, ensure that a vibrant and persuasive piece of copy in one language doesn’t become incomprehensible or tedious in another. More importantly, perhaps, they look out for those giveaways that sound warning sirens for the reader. Odd turns of phrase or poorly interpreted idiom.
And these things can be very subtle indeed. On a short connecting flight between Zürich and Stuttgart, Swiss International Airlines handed me some chocolate with the following message: “Two reasons to be happy: We are Lufthansa’s partner airline and we still serve Swiss chocolate.” It’s difficult to criticise the way in which these heart-warming thoughts have been translated into English. At a purely technical level, there’s nothing much wrong. It’s just that an English copywriter like me would have written the lines differently. The airline’s “reasons to be happy” sound a little too much like an instruction or order to the British ear. And the two joy-inducing facts are, of course, completely unrelated. Which means they’re better written as two sentences rather than one. Tiny, pedantic changes, but ones that can shift perceptions.
I’m sure the englishtalk business is likely to grow as more German businesses grasp the importance of native-speaker involvement in marketing. The result will undoubtedly be sales growth. And perhaps even tastier copy for Swiss chocolate.
Phil Woodford is a freelance copywriter, trainer and lecturer. www.philwoodford.com © Phil Woodford, 2005. All rights reserved.
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Where's the proposition? How cars, fries and bras have been defying convention
I was preparing a lecture recently on the theme of propaganda and advertising for the University of Westminster in London and it got me thinking about the way in which major corporations have become wary of traditional approaches to ad campaigns. I’ve blogged before about Volvo’s “Mystery of Dalaro” mockumentary and the “Life on Board” project, which take a surprisingly subtle approach to selling cars. It’s almost as if the in-your-face hard sell is thought to be counter productive nowadays. Perhaps the public is just too street wise? If we know we’re being sold to, we turn off. It’s therefore better to dress your commercial message in some unusual clothes. You can catch folk unawares before they dismiss your creative approach as commercial propaganda.
Audi’s “Art of the Heist” is perhaps the most elaborate exercise in this new ‘project’ genre and what they did to promote the A3 in the States is almost too complex to cover here. You can get a flavour at www.theartoftheheist.com and www.stolena3.com In a nutshell, agency McKinney-Silver created a three-month storyline involving a vehicle that had supposedly been stolen and then embellished it with movie content, multiple websites and real-time gaming that involved the general public. It all ended in an event at a Santa Monica hotel that was broadcast live over the web. Certainly a long way from the TV commercials we all grew up with. Whatever happened to the motor chasing its way through narrow mountain passes or skidding to a halt in the middle of the Arizona desert?
It’s not only car manufacturers that have got in on the act, however. Early in 2005, Americans were treated to the McDonalds French fry that looked like Abraham Lincoln. Blog pages and auctions on Yahoo! were just as critical to the success of the campaign as the TV commercials (see http://lincolnfry.yahoo.com/), although it has to be said that the television spots are beautifully written and directed.
At first glance, these campaigns seem to break some of the basic, age-old rules of advertising. Why isn’t the product centre stage? Where is the core, compelling proposition? On the first point, I’d argue that Audi A3s and the McDonalds fries are still core products, even if they’re ‘stolen’ in a make-believe game or shaped to look like former US Presidents. There’s no denying, however, that the classic sales pitch is hard to identify. The directness much beloved of old-school advertising executives has been replaced by something that’s altogether more touchy-feely. One can only assume that it’s thought to work though, as the budgets involved in some of these exercises would make failure difficult to contemplate.
When it comes to weird and wonderful approaches, there is of course a sliding scale. Some brands don’t go the whole hog, but still find an unusual and offbeat angle. A good example would be the recent UK campaign for Wonderbra, which doesn’t feature the product directly but concentrates instead on the public’s reaction to it. Experience WonderYou by clicking here. It may not be as elaborate as some of the other campaigns, but it does still defy convention to a certain degree.
American adman Rosser Reeves is credited with inventing the concept of the USP, which has served marketing professionals well over many decades. If he were working today, I’m not entirely sure what he’d make of cars that disappear and bras that hide themselves away. But to paraphrase one of his own famous remarks, if it makes the goddam sales curve go up rather down, it can’t be all bad.
© Phil Woodford, 2005. All rights reserved.
Phil Woodford is an advertising creative director and lecturer.
W www.philwoodford.com E 108th@philwoodford.com
I was preparing a lecture recently on the theme of propaganda and advertising for the University of Westminster in London and it got me thinking about the way in which major corporations have become wary of traditional approaches to ad campaigns. I’ve blogged before about Volvo’s “Mystery of Dalaro” mockumentary and the “Life on Board” project, which take a surprisingly subtle approach to selling cars. It’s almost as if the in-your-face hard sell is thought to be counter productive nowadays. Perhaps the public is just too street wise? If we know we’re being sold to, we turn off. It’s therefore better to dress your commercial message in some unusual clothes. You can catch folk unawares before they dismiss your creative approach as commercial propaganda.
Audi’s “Art of the Heist” is perhaps the most elaborate exercise in this new ‘project’ genre and what they did to promote the A3 in the States is almost too complex to cover here. You can get a flavour at www.theartoftheheist.com and www.stolena3.com In a nutshell, agency McKinney-Silver created a three-month storyline involving a vehicle that had supposedly been stolen and then embellished it with movie content, multiple websites and real-time gaming that involved the general public. It all ended in an event at a Santa Monica hotel that was broadcast live over the web. Certainly a long way from the TV commercials we all grew up with. Whatever happened to the motor chasing its way through narrow mountain passes or skidding to a halt in the middle of the Arizona desert?
It’s not only car manufacturers that have got in on the act, however. Early in 2005, Americans were treated to the McDonalds French fry that looked like Abraham Lincoln. Blog pages and auctions on Yahoo! were just as critical to the success of the campaign as the TV commercials (see http://lincolnfry.yahoo.com/), although it has to be said that the television spots are beautifully written and directed.
At first glance, these campaigns seem to break some of the basic, age-old rules of advertising. Why isn’t the product centre stage? Where is the core, compelling proposition? On the first point, I’d argue that Audi A3s and the McDonalds fries are still core products, even if they’re ‘stolen’ in a make-believe game or shaped to look like former US Presidents. There’s no denying, however, that the classic sales pitch is hard to identify. The directness much beloved of old-school advertising executives has been replaced by something that’s altogether more touchy-feely. One can only assume that it’s thought to work though, as the budgets involved in some of these exercises would make failure difficult to contemplate.
When it comes to weird and wonderful approaches, there is of course a sliding scale. Some brands don’t go the whole hog, but still find an unusual and offbeat angle. A good example would be the recent UK campaign for Wonderbra, which doesn’t feature the product directly but concentrates instead on the public’s reaction to it. Experience WonderYou by clicking here. It may not be as elaborate as some of the other campaigns, but it does still defy convention to a certain degree.
American adman Rosser Reeves is credited with inventing the concept of the USP, which has served marketing professionals well over many decades. If he were working today, I’m not entirely sure what he’d make of cars that disappear and bras that hide themselves away. But to paraphrase one of his own famous remarks, if it makes the goddam sales curve go up rather down, it can’t be all bad.
© Phil Woodford, 2005. All rights reserved.
Phil Woodford is an advertising creative director and lecturer.
W www.philwoodford.com E 108th@philwoodford.com
Sunday, September 04, 2005
Thursday, September 01, 2005
Trained by Jerry. Banned by train bosses.
Advertising creatives usually love to shock. And there’s no better way to prove you’ve shocked people than to have one of your ads banned. That’s why I was a little surprised that one of the younger members of our agency creative team seemed to endorse the censorship of a provocative poster from TV music channel VH1. The ad in question is promoting a show that airs in the UK for the first time on 4th September – Jerry Hall’s Kept (http://www.vh1.co.uk/vh1.co.uk/shows/kept.jhtml) To summarise this televisual trash in a nutshell, the glamorous Texan model and actress spends a few weeks vetting a bunch of hunky toyboys. They are eliminated one by one in classic reality TV style, until only one remains. This lucky fella gets to live Jerry’s millionaire lifestyle for a year and is handed the keys to a Jaguar, along with an American Express Gold Card. I’m still waiting to hear about my application for the show, which must have got lost somewhere in the mail.
In the controversial poster, which was plastered up around London by Viacom but taken down by bosses of London Underground, Jerry is seen at the bottom of a spiral staircase, presiding over a number of scantily-clad, leashed men who are down on all fours. The copy says simply: Twelve get trained. Only one gets kept. Jerry Hall’s Kept. Starts this Sunday at 6pm.
At a pure advertising level, this ad does exactly what it should. It catches your attention. It tells you everything you need to know about the product. If you’re advertising a TV show, you give the name of the programme and say when it’s on as quickly as you can. But you add just a touch of panache and style. Great examples include the headline “Parole Denied” alongside a picture of the cast of Bad Girls announcing a new season on ITV1. Or a picture of Kiefer Sutherland as Federal Agent Jack Bauer in 24 with the line “If you don’t have Sky One, you don’t get Jack.”
So where has VH1 gone wrong? Our young copywriter agreed with the tube chiefs that the poster was treating the pictured men as sexual objects. Presumably, this is felt to be demeaning. Her argument was that if the sex roles were reversed and it were women crawling around the floor, the poster would obviously be unacceptable. I wholeheartedly agree. But the poster doesn’t feature women. It features men. Men, I believe, who should be big and testosterone-filled enough to take this tongue-in-cheek poster execution in their stride. Even when they’re on all fours.
We live in a world where women often feel threatened by physical and sexual violence, earn less than men and struggle to make it into the top echelons of business and politics. In this context, there is a big difference between presenting men as subservient slaves and presenting women in the same light. The first is a joke. The second, for far too many women, is a rather too close to reality. Maybe I should never have studied sociology at university, but I find myself in the weird position of championing the feminist cause to a younger female colleague. Perhaps it’s one stage better than the position I’d be in if I were one of Jerry’s kept men.
© Phil Woodford, 2005. All rights reserved.
Phil Woodford is an advertising creative director and lecturer. www.philwoodford.com
Advertising creatives usually love to shock. And there’s no better way to prove you’ve shocked people than to have one of your ads banned. That’s why I was a little surprised that one of the younger members of our agency creative team seemed to endorse the censorship of a provocative poster from TV music channel VH1. The ad in question is promoting a show that airs in the UK for the first time on 4th September – Jerry Hall’s Kept (http://www.vh1.co.uk/vh1.co.uk/shows/kept.jhtml) To summarise this televisual trash in a nutshell, the glamorous Texan model and actress spends a few weeks vetting a bunch of hunky toyboys. They are eliminated one by one in classic reality TV style, until only one remains. This lucky fella gets to live Jerry’s millionaire lifestyle for a year and is handed the keys to a Jaguar, along with an American Express Gold Card. I’m still waiting to hear about my application for the show, which must have got lost somewhere in the mail.
In the controversial poster, which was plastered up around London by Viacom but taken down by bosses of London Underground, Jerry is seen at the bottom of a spiral staircase, presiding over a number of scantily-clad, leashed men who are down on all fours. The copy says simply: Twelve get trained. Only one gets kept. Jerry Hall’s Kept. Starts this Sunday at 6pm.
At a pure advertising level, this ad does exactly what it should. It catches your attention. It tells you everything you need to know about the product. If you’re advertising a TV show, you give the name of the programme and say when it’s on as quickly as you can. But you add just a touch of panache and style. Great examples include the headline “Parole Denied” alongside a picture of the cast of Bad Girls announcing a new season on ITV1. Or a picture of Kiefer Sutherland as Federal Agent Jack Bauer in 24 with the line “If you don’t have Sky One, you don’t get Jack.”
So where has VH1 gone wrong? Our young copywriter agreed with the tube chiefs that the poster was treating the pictured men as sexual objects. Presumably, this is felt to be demeaning. Her argument was that if the sex roles were reversed and it were women crawling around the floor, the poster would obviously be unacceptable. I wholeheartedly agree. But the poster doesn’t feature women. It features men. Men, I believe, who should be big and testosterone-filled enough to take this tongue-in-cheek poster execution in their stride. Even when they’re on all fours.
We live in a world where women often feel threatened by physical and sexual violence, earn less than men and struggle to make it into the top echelons of business and politics. In this context, there is a big difference between presenting men as subservient slaves and presenting women in the same light. The first is a joke. The second, for far too many women, is a rather too close to reality. Maybe I should never have studied sociology at university, but I find myself in the weird position of championing the feminist cause to a younger female colleague. Perhaps it’s one stage better than the position I’d be in if I were one of Jerry’s kept men.
© Phil Woodford, 2005. All rights reserved.
Phil Woodford is an advertising creative director and lecturer. www.philwoodford.com
Sunday, June 05, 2005
Go MK? I'd rather go to L.
Can cities become brands? It’s a question a colleague placed in my mind recently when she told me about the efforts of Milton Keynes to promote itself as a “thriving, cosmopolitan city”.
For those of you who’ve never had the pleasure, Milton Keynes is a British ‘new town’ created after the aerial bombardment of World War II. Uncharacteristically for the UK, its anonymous streets run in a grid pattern reminiscent of cities in the USA and the place is about as pedestrian-unfriendly as you can imagine. If you conducted a public poll on perceptions of the place, I guess that people would think of it as pretty boring and sterile. Which must be the thinking behind its recent reincarnation as “MK”. While Milton Keynes sounds 1940s and rather austere, MK is go-getting and oh-so-twenty-first-century. A logo and a website have been produced (see http://www.gomk.net/), along with an excruciating exhortation to local residents to champion the city’s further progress. The slogan “Go MK” is so trite and embarrassing that it’s only possible to imagine endorsement from earnest local government officials and primary school children. Or perhaps it’s a description of what happens to residents if they spend too long in the place? “He’d only been here five years and went completely MK.”
No doubt, some important folk feel that the abandonment of Milton Keynes is some highly original piece of rebranding, but I have to say I’m not entirely convinced. Has the local population really bought into the whole MK phenomenon? Because if it hasn’t, it’s very difficult for a few advertisements and web pages to make much of an impact in the outside world. It’s just the same when businesses rebrand. Unless the employees of the company understand and endorse the changes taking place, it’s difficult for customer perceptions to shift.
And as for originality, Milton Keynes isn’t the only town on the rebranding trail. Nottingham, according to news reports in early 2005, has junked Robin Hood as its symbol in favour of the letter ‘N’. A slanted ‘N’, to be precise, that cost £120,000. And this is where I think the marketers really are losing the plot. The brand ‘equity’ – to use a hideous piece of marketing jargon – of Robin Hood is rather stronger and longer-lasting than anything that’s likely to replace it. In fact, it’s been tried and tested for several hundred years. The notorious outlaw is not only well known in the UK, but he’s been robbing rich Americans of their tourist dollars for a while too. If the old boy’s bow and arrow ain’t broke, why fix it? The next step, of course, would be to change the name of the place entirely. Constantinople did, after all, become Istanbul. But I think that was after the fall of the Byzantine empire. The relegation of the local football club, Nottingham Forest, to what was once League Division Three isn’t quite on the same scale perhaps.
If cities need brand identities – and I suppose in this crazy, mixed-up, competitive world, they probably do – I think a lesson can be learned from the American states. Whilst some, such as Kansas, favour obscure Latin mottos (Ad astra per aspera), others like Indiana (The Crossroads of America) have gone for the compelling and self-explanatory. In common with any good advertising tagline, it does exactly what it says on the tin.
I'm off to work on a new campaign to promote London. It's called Go to L.
© Phil Woodford, 2005. All rights reserved.
Can cities become brands? It’s a question a colleague placed in my mind recently when she told me about the efforts of Milton Keynes to promote itself as a “thriving, cosmopolitan city”.
For those of you who’ve never had the pleasure, Milton Keynes is a British ‘new town’ created after the aerial bombardment of World War II. Uncharacteristically for the UK, its anonymous streets run in a grid pattern reminiscent of cities in the USA and the place is about as pedestrian-unfriendly as you can imagine. If you conducted a public poll on perceptions of the place, I guess that people would think of it as pretty boring and sterile. Which must be the thinking behind its recent reincarnation as “MK”. While Milton Keynes sounds 1940s and rather austere, MK is go-getting and oh-so-twenty-first-century. A logo and a website have been produced (see http://www.gomk.net/), along with an excruciating exhortation to local residents to champion the city’s further progress. The slogan “Go MK” is so trite and embarrassing that it’s only possible to imagine endorsement from earnest local government officials and primary school children. Or perhaps it’s a description of what happens to residents if they spend too long in the place? “He’d only been here five years and went completely MK.”
No doubt, some important folk feel that the abandonment of Milton Keynes is some highly original piece of rebranding, but I have to say I’m not entirely convinced. Has the local population really bought into the whole MK phenomenon? Because if it hasn’t, it’s very difficult for a few advertisements and web pages to make much of an impact in the outside world. It’s just the same when businesses rebrand. Unless the employees of the company understand and endorse the changes taking place, it’s difficult for customer perceptions to shift.
And as for originality, Milton Keynes isn’t the only town on the rebranding trail. Nottingham, according to news reports in early 2005, has junked Robin Hood as its symbol in favour of the letter ‘N’. A slanted ‘N’, to be precise, that cost £120,000. And this is where I think the marketers really are losing the plot. The brand ‘equity’ – to use a hideous piece of marketing jargon – of Robin Hood is rather stronger and longer-lasting than anything that’s likely to replace it. In fact, it’s been tried and tested for several hundred years. The notorious outlaw is not only well known in the UK, but he’s been robbing rich Americans of their tourist dollars for a while too. If the old boy’s bow and arrow ain’t broke, why fix it? The next step, of course, would be to change the name of the place entirely. Constantinople did, after all, become Istanbul. But I think that was after the fall of the Byzantine empire. The relegation of the local football club, Nottingham Forest, to what was once League Division Three isn’t quite on the same scale perhaps.
If cities need brand identities – and I suppose in this crazy, mixed-up, competitive world, they probably do – I think a lesson can be learned from the American states. Whilst some, such as Kansas, favour obscure Latin mottos (Ad astra per aspera), others like Indiana (The Crossroads of America) have gone for the compelling and self-explanatory. In common with any good advertising tagline, it does exactly what it says on the tin.
I'm off to work on a new campaign to promote London. It's called Go to L.
© Phil Woodford, 2005. All rights reserved.
Phil Woodford is an advertising creative director and lecturer. www.philwoodford.com
Friday, February 04, 2005
Channel 4’s Nathan Barley Campaign: it’s well weapon
If you’re a regular user of the London Underground, you will probably have seen the recent poster campaign for an unlikely mobile device called the Wasp T12. I was particularly intrigued by the headline. Apparently, the phone or gaming machine or whatever the hell is featured in the ad is ‘well weapon’.
The heart of this 36-year-old copywriter sank immediately. What future is there for an ad man unfamiliar with such scary street vernacular? I just had to visit http://www.trashbat.co.ck/ to find out more. (And, yes, you did read it correctly. That’s .co.ck.) On the site, there’s a chance to explore an alarming amount of technical detail on the T12. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find evidence of a highly sophisticated marketing campaign for the new Chris Morris sitcom, Nathan Barley, due to air on 11th February. The show centres around a young guy working in new media and the trailers are viewable online. It’s the kind of thing that will only truly make sense when we’ve seen the first episode. But I know that Channel 4 has already attracted at least one viewer.
Although completely different in content and tone, the spirit of the Barley campaign is very similar to the work being done for Volvo with the Mystery of Dalaro and the Life on Board Project. It’s difficult to find new and original ways of promoting TV shows and cars, but intriguing, slow-build multimedia campaigns often have a strong viral effect. I’ve told a number of people about Barley already, for instance. The website becomes the hub of the campaign, because it’s so easy to pass around links via e-mail.
Chris Morris is a highly controversial figure and I’ve no doubt that this sitcom will cause a bit of media stir. In the meantime, I’ve ordered my Wasp and plan to stream the programme direct to my handset.
Copyright Phil Woodford, 2005. All rights reserved.
Phil Woodford is an advertising creative director and lecturer.
If you’re a regular user of the London Underground, you will probably have seen the recent poster campaign for an unlikely mobile device called the Wasp T12. I was particularly intrigued by the headline. Apparently, the phone or gaming machine or whatever the hell is featured in the ad is ‘well weapon’.
The heart of this 36-year-old copywriter sank immediately. What future is there for an ad man unfamiliar with such scary street vernacular? I just had to visit http://www.trashbat.co.ck/ to find out more. (And, yes, you did read it correctly. That’s .co.ck.) On the site, there’s a chance to explore an alarming amount of technical detail on the T12. But dig a little deeper and you’ll find evidence of a highly sophisticated marketing campaign for the new Chris Morris sitcom, Nathan Barley, due to air on 11th February. The show centres around a young guy working in new media and the trailers are viewable online. It’s the kind of thing that will only truly make sense when we’ve seen the first episode. But I know that Channel 4 has already attracted at least one viewer.
Although completely different in content and tone, the spirit of the Barley campaign is very similar to the work being done for Volvo with the Mystery of Dalaro and the Life on Board Project. It’s difficult to find new and original ways of promoting TV shows and cars, but intriguing, slow-build multimedia campaigns often have a strong viral effect. I’ve told a number of people about Barley already, for instance. The website becomes the hub of the campaign, because it’s so easy to pass around links via e-mail.
Chris Morris is a highly controversial figure and I’ve no doubt that this sitcom will cause a bit of media stir. In the meantime, I’ve ordered my Wasp and plan to stream the programme direct to my handset.
Copyright Phil Woodford, 2005. All rights reserved.
Phil Woodford is an advertising creative director and lecturer.
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