What the bloody hell does it mean? Slogan baffles Japan
This article in today's Melbourne "Age" highlights the pitfalls associated with using colloquial language in international ad campaigns.
The new Australian Tourism campaign has been attracting a lot of attention recently for it's controversial tag-line "So where the bloody hell are you?" (see it here). In Australia "bloody" is the universal adjective used to describe just about anything when the speaker can't think of anything more articulate to say (which is most of the time). However, in many other countries, it is considered offensive, or worse, as in the Japanese example where it has no equivalent at all. Which also begs the question, why didn't the Aussie Tourism Board find out in advance if anyone in their second largest market actually understands the expression?
The campaign has attracted a lot of media attention lately due to this controversy, which is not necessarily a bad thing if you come from the school of thought which believes any publicity is good. It's also spurned several parodies (piss-takes, if you're Aussie) which can be seen here:
Piss-take 1
Piss-take 2
The second of these piss-takes is noteworthy because of the further controversy it has created - seems the Aussie government only likes the joke to go as far as they want it to.
In complete contrast, the new Singapore Tourism Board TV campaign uses no language at all - just a stream of fast cutting images set against a jarring soundscape reminiscent of a car accident. Their tagline - "Beyond Words" - describes it perfectly. Needless to say, this campaign has attracted no media attention whatsoever. In fact it can't even be found on the STB website... hello?
The new Australian Tourism campaign has been attracting a lot of attention recently for it's controversial tag-line "So where the bloody hell are you?" (see it here). In Australia "bloody" is the universal adjective used to describe just about anything when the speaker can't think of anything more articulate to say (which is most of the time). However, in many other countries, it is considered offensive, or worse, as in the Japanese example where it has no equivalent at all. Which also begs the question, why didn't the Aussie Tourism Board find out in advance if anyone in their second largest market actually understands the expression?
The campaign has attracted a lot of media attention lately due to this controversy, which is not necessarily a bad thing if you come from the school of thought which believes any publicity is good. It's also spurned several parodies (piss-takes, if you're Aussie) which can be seen here:
Piss-take 1
Piss-take 2
The second of these piss-takes is noteworthy because of the further controversy it has created - seems the Aussie government only likes the joke to go as far as they want it to.
In complete contrast, the new Singapore Tourism Board TV campaign uses no language at all - just a stream of fast cutting images set against a jarring soundscape reminiscent of a car accident. Their tagline - "Beyond Words" - describes it perfectly. Needless to say, this campaign has attracted no media attention whatsoever. In fact it can't even be found on the STB website... hello?
posted by naive at 8:32 AM
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