Language Barriers effect on marketing a product/service

Language Barriers

 

Language barriers can be a major issue when using a standardised marketing strategy; this is because an organisation is marketing its company’s products/service to a multi-national market. Because of this there will be many different cultures and languages used. A company, when using a standardised marketing strategy, needs to find a way for their organisation to be understood worldwide, with as little confusion and misunderstandings as possible. These can lead to catastrophes within the company which are quite quickly publicised and viewed as a sign of incompetence. In a global marketplace, language barriers, when marketing a product/service can be a difficult obstacle to avoid. According to bbc.co.uk/languages, “It’s estimated that up to 7,000 different languages are spoken around the world.” Because of the large amount of languages spoken globally, marketing a product/service is difficult because of the communication barriers that are formed through these thousands of languages. It is very difficult to market and advertise a product/service globally when there are numerous amounts of languages spoken. Many aspects that can’t be displayed visually for a product/service can be lost in translation to foreign spoken viewers/potential consumers and customers.

 

Here is an example of an organisation which has failed at global business due to language barriers.

 

"All pictures or symbols are not interpreted the same across the world: Workers at the African port of Stevadores saw the "internationally recognized" symbol for "fragile" (i.e. broken wine glass) and presumed it was a box of broken glass. Rather than waste space they threw all the boxes into the sea" (Neil Payne, 2008, proz.com). This demonstrates a loss in communication within an organisation due to language barriers and cultural differences.

 

Another example but from a higher end of the business spectrum, from a managerial and chairman level is when “After meeting recently with President Obama to discuss the Deepwater Horizon oil-spill disaster, Svanberg informed the world’s media, “We care about the small people. I hear comments sometimes that large oil companies, or greedy companies, don’t care. But that is not case in BP; we care about the small people.”

The problem is that Svanberg, a Swede, is a fluent English speaker but not a native one and appears not to have consulted a professional linguist making his pronouncement. So, while Svanberg was trying to sound caring, humble and apologetic by saying that that BP cared about the ordinary folks affected by the oil spill, his clumsy use of English ended up making both him and BP instead sound lofty, remote and out-of-touch, if not arrogant and condescending.” [online]www.translationswave.com

This shows a language barrier between an English spoken, Swedish born chairman of the BP oil company, trying to give a sincere apology, but instead, due to bad English, offends thousands. The product of a scenario like this is bad publicity to the company, and a reputation of being informal and heartless.

Another product which was lost in translation is the 1971-1980 Ford Pinto, according to James Sunshine, after release of the product the Brazilians shortly turned away the opportunity as “'pinto' is slang for 'tiny male genitals' in Brazil”

According to GNN money reports, “Coors' slogan "turn it loose"” translates to Spanish, “get loose bowels”” and for a company which produces alcoholic beverage which are often enjoyed in a social environment, this translation could sway a Spanish speaking customer far away from that product.

 

References

·         [online] viewed 2013, bbc language http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/guide/languages.shtml

·         [online] viewed 2013, Neil Payne, 2008, www.proz.com

·         [online] viewed 2013, Top 10 translation blunders of international marketing, PR and branding, http://www.translationswave.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=63:translation&catid=34:articles&Itemid=41

·         [online] James Sunshine, 8/11/2012, ‘11 Brand Names That Sound Hilarious In A Different Language’ at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/10/lost-in-translation-brands_n_1765812.html#slide=1362544

·         [online] GNN money reports, 8/11/2012, ‘11 Brand Names That Sound Hilarious In A Different Language’ at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/08/10/lost-in-translation-brands_n_1765812.html#slide=1362544

 

Appendix

“Volkswagen (VW) is a German automobile manufacturer headquartered in Wolfsburg, Lower Saxony, Germany. Volkswagen is the original and top-selling marque of the Volkswagen Group, the biggest German automaker and the second biggest automaker in the world.

Volkswagen has three cars in the top 10 list of best-selling cars of all time compiled by the website 24/7 Wall St: the Volkswagen Golf, the Volkswagen Beetle, and the Volkswagen Passat. With these three cars, Volkswagen has the most cars of any automobile manufacturer in the list that are still being manufactured.^[1] Volkswagen ranks first in spending the most money of any automaker on research and development.^[2]

Volkswagen means "people's car" in German (pronounced [ˈfɔlksˌvaːɡən].) Its current slogan is Das Auto (The Car).” [online] viewed 2013, description from wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volkswagen

An example of a product that has been badly marketed rather than a business and its employees is America’s leading brand of baby food “ best-known makers of baby food but “gerber” can also be translated into French as “to vomit” – somewhat limiting for the brand’s next global marketing push. Wisely therefore, the name is not marketed in France” [online]www.translationswave.com

Sensitivity within culture - taboo's & sexuality

Awareness of sensitive cultural topics

 

There are many topics in business that can be sensitive to various cultures and can be interpreted differently. These topics are important to keep in mind and to be cautious of because, especially in the modern day with multiple outlets of personal opinion and interpretation such as social network sites, a company can be portrayed in bad light for cultural negligence. Standardised marketing strategies are more at risk for offending and committing “faux pas” towards different cultures. This is due to the fact that they are marketing globally and have to take into account the multiple culture differences.

 

Taboos – Avoiding offending cultures through cultural taboos is part of a business’s corporate social responsibility. It is important with a business such as VW to be aware of other cultures taboos, their “do’s” and “don’ts” both in the business world and out.  Taboos are important to be aware of in the business environment because of scenarios such as conferences and meetings with individuals from different cultures attending. Some cultures can take great offense to different things that may be accepted in certain parts of the world. For example a nod means "no" in Bulgaria, and shaking the head side-to-side means "yes." (M. Katherine Glover 1998) or, “In Indonesia it is considered extremely rude to point with the forefinger. It is especially rude if the pointing is towards a person. When pointing the Indonesian uses his thumb.” (MTS logistics 2012).

 

Sexuality – Sexuality is an important sensitive topic, especially when conducting business. Like cultural taboos, sexuality equality is part of an organisation corporate social responsibility and is viewed as etiquette for the company to conduct this equality. Dissimilar to business taboos. There are legal legislations laid down to protect gender and sexuality/gender preferences within a working environment to prevent discrimination. T. Lawrence has discovered that,

 

“The difficulties black men experience in corporations are due more to sexism than to racism. Robert Goldfarb's recently published article in the New York Times on the impact of affirmative-action programs in the corporate structure would seem to suggest that racism is more entrenched than sexism in the business world. Black men are not faring as well as women in corporate organizations. They are more likely than women to be dismissed or to be assigned to conventional jobs where their performances are closely monitored.”

 

In this instance T.Lawrence then continues to explain the reasoning for this discovery,

 

“Goldfarb observes that black men often fulfilled the stereotypes that whites "ascribe to blacks: they arrived late to important meetings, moved from assignment to assignment without developing enduring skills, and exploded in a fury of temper at what whites perceived to be minor slights." It can come as no surprise to anyone, whether black or white, male or female, that to exhibit behavior such as this is to commit professional suicide.”

 

This explains that there is a correlation of unemployment within the black male society. This article could cause contradiction between gender discrimination and reasoning for the low statistic of successful black males in a business environment.

 

Sexism is a topic which should be addressed in a business because of equality. Women have as much right to progress and maintain a career as men do. Women can be proven to be extremely successful in businesses, for example Deborah Meaden from the popular TV program ‘Dragons Den’,

 

“From a very early age Deborah knew she wanted her own business. Having left school after O-Levels she studied at Business College and at the age of 19, with very little capital she launched her own glass and ceramics import company supplying upmarket stores like Harvey Nichols. But despite having sole agency rights, the goods started appearing in other high street shops and, without the finances for a legal fight, Deborah walked away.” ([Online] at Deborah Meaden’s webpage)

 

This shows the prospects and potential of female entrepreneurs.

References

 

·         M. Katherine Glover, 1998, Business America, cover story. “Do’s and taboos”

·         MTS Logistics, 2012, Culture clash, http://gcaptain.com/culture-clash/

·         T. Lawrence, Business Horizons; Jul/Aug81, Vol. 24 Issue 4, p62

·         http://www.deborahmeaden.com/2/about-me ‘about me’ Deborah Meaden

Standardised and Localised marketing strategy for VW

 

Types of strategy

 

There are two types of strategies that an organisation are able to adopt, these are standardised and localised strategies. Strategically, this is one of the most important decisions an international business has to make in order to improve marketing and communication of their product/service to customers.

 

 

Standardised - This type of marketing strategy demonstrates a more wide spread communication. It communicates an organisation and their products/services on a global scale and "standardises" their marketing technique to appeal and be understood worldwide. Standardising in this instance can be defined as altering the communication to be suitable for multiple markets. This means that consumer’s cultures, language barriers, legal regulations, location, product pricing and packaging etc. are taken into account when marketing the service/product ensuring that these can be translated and understood globally. Segmentation such as geodemographical segmentation would be used for standardised strategy. "Standardization is commonly defined in the literature as a strategy wherein marketers assume global homogeneous markets and in response offer standardized products and services using a standardized marketing mix" (Mooij, 1998; Jain, 1989).

 

This type of marketing strategy would be useful for Volkswagen because it means that there is a larger market to communicate to. A larger market means that a larger number of people would be aware of VW as an organisation, what they do and what they can offer. The only disadvantages of having a more standardised strategy is that marketing products/services to a larger market will decrease the personalisation of the communication, meaning that the product will not be as specific to a certain market, but more of a generalised image/message of the company/products/service. Please see figure 1 copied from William L. Wilkie’s Alternate views of the market.

 

 

 

This image shows advantages and disadvantages of segmenting the market, in this instance, being standardised marketing strategy; we can see that targeting a larger market, i.e. the globe as a market is low cost. The disadvantages are that the effectiveness of the market strategy is reduced.

 

A standardised organisation will look and act the same to every market; companies like IKEA adopt this strategy and execute it extremely well,

 

 "A characteristic that makes IKEA stand out among global retailers is the - alleged - standardised approach to every market it enters. It looks and operates the same in every market" (Salmon and Tordjman, 1989). Ikea use the same product names, building layouts, product design and many more features of the organisation in all markets. This can build up an almost brand trademark for the company which is recognised globally.

 

 

 

Localised -

 

Localised marketing strategy is where the communication is customized to suit a specific market; this market is generally on a small scale and is easy to analyse and gain productive feedback from. Feedback can be obtained easier because it is a more localised market which means it is easier to manage and assess.

 

Most marketing activities will be more successful when adapted to local conditions and circumstances in the marketplace. In this way a pure global marketing strategy is not ideal as it does not take locally related issues into account. Marketers need to understand how their brand is meeting the needs of customers and how successful their marketing efforts are in individual countries (Kotler, 2009).

 

 

Kotler, 2009 describes how a localised marketing strategies advantages are that there is a more direct and simplified approach to pleasing a smaller (local) market.

 

Using a localised strategy, a marketer has less concern about language barriers, due to the fact that they will be marketing in the spoken languages, the only acceptations would be people living in that market area who do not speak the spoken language. Cultural issues would be a much smaller hurdle than marketing globally as the culture divides will be on a lot smaller scale.

 

A localised marketing strategy would be useful for VW because it can be more effective marketing to a smaller market with less segmentation. There is more of a view on what the consumers of a smaller market would like to hear and have, meaning that communication is easier when localised. With VW adopting a localised marketing strategy, VW as a company would be able to customise their marketing schemes to appeal to that market. The disadvantages of having a localised marketing strategy are that there is a smaller market to target and therefore less potential consumers are effected by the marketing strategy.

 

References

 

 

· [online] http://globalizationexecutive.com/articles/Chapter3.pdf

 

· (Neil Payne, 2008, www.proz.com). viewed online at:http://globalizationexecutive.com/articles/Chapter3.pdf

· (Salmon, W.J. and Tordjman), A. (1989), "The internationalisation of retailing", International Journal of Retailing, Vol. 4 No. 2, pp. 3-16.

· [online], definition and context of standardizing strategies http://globe.miis.edu/definitions.html

· (Mooij, 1998; Jain, 1989). viewed online at:http://globalizationexecutive.com/articles/Chapter3.pdf

·         William L. Wilkie’s Consumer Behaviour, Third Edition 1994, chapter 4/marketing segmentation, p85, Alternate views of the market figure 4-1.

·         Kotler, Ph. et al., (2009), Marketing Management – European Edition. Harlow, England: Pearson Prentice Hall Publishing, pp. 467 – 468