Brave enough to be funny?

Mistakes are the easiest way to destroy the communication from the first step.
Russia &CIS is one of the most attractive region for many large and medium business. Entering WTO, striking the crisis, unique customer’s behavior make this market a delicious apple pie. From the other hand, Russian tourists are easy meat abroad. And of course, first positive marketing ideas with signboards and menu in Russian worked very good . Small and rude texts mistakes seemed charming to naïve tourist eye.  But those blessed times passed over.  Now literacy is one of the marks of quality.

Let’s be honest, when foreigner comes to you, ascent-speaking, asking for information, you will help him. But will you buy anything what he suggests?  Some goods, which you are able to touch yourself, maybe. But if we are talking about services, or consulting, or medicines, or any other thing, where trust and confidence are important, right writing helps to make a first step. That’s why our foreign partners  always ask us to read and correct their translation. Especially that concerns B2B materials, ADs and booklets. And here we meet the second step.

It’s localization. Professional communicators will understand me – even the best and closest translation gives no guarantee of reaching target media, target audience and customer’s mind. Unlike advertizing, where we work with sense only, PR-texts have to operate with both facts and sense. Last winter we’ve got the press-release from one of our clients, announcing the fact of the new company. For sure that was the greatest news for the company itself, but Russian media didn’t care about some company based abroad. But there was the “little” point – the chairman of this new born firm was one of the famous Russian top-managers. We suggested to edit the press-release making the main point on the personality of Russian business-star. The result was over 70 publications by that release plus the article in №1 business-newspaper.  

The third step, most important for local PR, is integration of messages with local information field. It’s good way to get more publications because both media and customers like to learn more about actual themes. In December 2012 there was a huge buzz about the bloomsday on 21.12. And another our client wanted to make a flashmob with eating apples. Does anybody know what is Russian winter? Well, we chose 21.12 as the date of the flashmob, created the event in a Facebook named “Vitamins vs Bloomsday”  and gathered over 50 apple eaters in a dark cold early morning. And that made a story about fresh apples fighting bloomsday. Much fun indeed.

Actually, I don’t tell any news, do I. Literacy is good, mistakes are bad, we have to talk to people in their languages. Everybody knows that. But companies  are still trying to enter the key market with bad localization or even without  translation. Meanwhile good localization of one press-release or story casts 25-50 euro. Well, that are money. But I guess, the launch casts a little bit more. And – nowadays are the same as the days gone – you’ll never get the second chance to make a first impression. So my recommendation is –buy localization services and win.