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ENEMIES OF THE ADVERTISING COPY...
IN ENGLISH, SPANISH OR ANY OTHER LANGUAGE!
PERSNICKETY EXECUTIVES WITH
POOR WRITING SKILLS
KILL THEIR OWN ADVERTISING
By Ralph Rewes
By Not Trusting Their Writer Or Advertising Professional --
Or By Imposing Poor Suggestions On A Professionally Written Copy
-- Some Executives Destroy The Stylistic Consistency And The
Quality Of A Carefully Thought-Out Ad.
During my 30 years in the writing business I have obviously
accumulated a fair amount of experience, but I have also endured
hundreds of frustrations -- especially in advertising. Every
one who works in this field knows how often he must sacrifice
quality because some clients insist in making unnecessary and
even ridiculous changes to a well-written piece of copy. Some
executives in charge of revising advertising copy have no idea
how a superficial suggestion may diminish the quality of their
final ad.
They fail to realize how an unbalanced copy negatively affects
their company's image. Acting on likes and dislikes alone, they
resort to coercive tactics their advertising professionals, forgetting
that they are on their side. These executives wrongly impose
their personal tastes upon their advertisers in many cases disregarding
their company's best interests.
If an executive looks for an advertising agent or professional
writer, it is because his writing abilities are either not be
good enough or you don't have the time or the inclination to
waste tinkering with advertising copies.
Your executive judgment is important to select an advertising
professional or writer. But once you have decided what advertising
agency or what writer is best suited for your needs, stay away
from interfering in the production of the artistic and creative
components -- and I mean the components, not the end result
of their creation.
You should and you must judge -- of course -- the advertising
product as a whole, but for your own benefit don't mess around
with its separate components, i. e., words, syntax, fonts, positioning
of graphics, etc. Your professional creative team knows why things
are done a certain way. It is their job, the one you are paying
good money to have it done right.
I know of an executive who destroyed his own publication because
he enjoyed playing art director rather than sticking to his job
as a publisher.
You don't like the style? Fine, ask your writer or creative
team to change it -- as a whole. Give your team choices: humorous,
tongue-in-cheek, serious, elegant, informal, formal, encyclopedic,
loud, subliminal, etc. But don't change or allow changes of separate
pieces of the copy or final job. One sentence in one style and
the second one in another gives a very disturbing incoherence
to your copy -- And incoherence kills it for good.
In most cases, the advertising agency or the writer will explain
the reasons for their copy approach. However, business is business,
and if you are too adamant about imposing a negative change,
they will make it afraid of losing your account. If that is the
case -- you lose. The results of ceding in the end will damage
your image and that of the advertising agency for consenting
under pressure to produce a poor-quality or, even worse, an inefficient
job.
If you are not a professional writer, a wrong style suggestion
will not make you look good at all. Your ad will not produce
the results you need.
Advertising agencies and writers have the know-how to produce
the best copy. If you feed them all the right information about
the market and the concept or idea you want to present, the odds
will be on an excellent result.
Persnicketiness on trivial details deviates you from important
executive aspects of a copy, like (1) checking to see if your
advertising professional has included all information you want
in your copy; (2) checking to see if the copy matches the market
you want to reach; (3) checking to be sure if the overall
style is the one you requested, and (4) checking to see if quality
matches your budget, and last but not least: be sure all
the legal disclaimers are in!
Usually, your advertising professional or writer will provide
you with a draft for you to revise and approve. When you receive
a draft, don't criticize the looks, what you should do is read
it carefully to make sure that everything you requested has been
considered. However, your most important consideration must be
the legal aspect. Be absolutely sure that all legal disclaimers
are included, correct and legally worded. Have your lawyer check
the copy for legal flaws only.
If you would like to have the copy proofread, don't ask just
anyone to do a copy correction or, in translation, don't give
it to a person because he or she happens to speak the language.
One thing is to speak a language, another to know it well. Give
it to a truly proficient language professional. Don't have copy
revised by more than one person and have only him (or you) decide
what goes (not how it goes) and what doesn't into the final version.
This prevents irritating discussions and costly waste of time.
You must also demand from your proofreader not to make style
changes or unnecessary word substitutions. Again, style changes
make a copy read incoherently. Needless substitutions of words
waste your time by going back and forth for nothing. They also
waste your money because the writer or advertising professional
has the right to charge extra for futile corrections, analyses,
modem transmissions, etc.
The following sample memo covers trilingual advertising and
can be easily adjusted to fit your needs. Attach it to the copy
to be proofread:
To Whom It may Concern:
Re: Proofreading
Please proofread the attached page(s). On a separate sheet, list
your suggestions. Please do not make any style or unnecessary
changes. When suggesting a word substitution, be sure your substituted
word is one already included in either the American Heritage
or Webster dictionaries (For English Text).
For Spanish text, be sure the word has been approved by the Real
Academia Española de la Lengua (Royal Spanish Academy
of the Language).
For Brazilian-Portuguese text, be sure the word has been approved
by the Academia Brasileira de Letras (Brazilian Academy).
For European-Portuguese text, be sure the word has been approved
by the Academia Portuguesa da Língua (Portuguese Academy
of the Language).
Thanks.
Once you receive the revised copy, follow these simple steps:
- Check back with your copywriter, advertising professional
or translator on any suggestion or correction listed.
- Again, never allow style fluctuations, which frustrate the
reader.
- Double check the spelling of proper names.
- Give figures extreme consideration -- most writers are not
good at typing figures.
- When sending a copy for trade jargon consultation, don't
accept grammar, spelling or style changes just because they come
from a professional. Trust your writer or advertising professional.
Architects, doctors or businessmen, outstanding as they may be
in what they do, are not necessarily proficient writers.
Miami is a confusing place for a responsible advertising agency
executive who tries to advertise in Spanish with little or no
knowledge of this language. Frequently, this advertising professional
gets trapped between a job well done by a professional writer
and absurd correction claims by an intolerant client whose language
proficiency stays below grammar school level or who has been
manipulated by competitors.
Anglo customers are often afraid that, in a translated copy,
their precious original with a lot of puns and funny lines, may
lose its punch. They demand that the translated version remains
"as close as possible" to their original. This is a
big mistake! Give your copywriter plenty of room to create in
the language he is writing -- especially when he is translating.
To understand how bad a literal translation may sound, please
read the following examples taken from popular commercials originally
written in Spanish: "It was going like a rocket," "It
was uglier than going on foot," and "Tasteful until
the last little mouthful."
Obviously the above slogans did nothing for you. The same occurs
when you give a Spanish reader a literal translation of your
English copy. No matter how funny a pun is and how smart it sounds
in English, it cannot be properly translated. The funnier the
pun in the original, the worse its translation! In this case,
you need a very creative Spanish writer.
"It was going like a rocket," or "iba como
un cohete" is the correct Spanish rendering of "faster
than a speeding bullet." "Más Rápido
que una Bala Acelerando," a literal translation, would make
the reader gag. "It was uglier than going on foot,"
or "Más feo que andar a pie" is the correct
Spanish rendering of "Ugly as Hell." "Feo como
Infierno," its literal translation is downright stupid.
"Tasteful until the last little mouthful," is one
of the most appealing advertising slogans created in Cuba in
the 40's and later revived with great success in Miami
and Latin America. It belongs to Café Pilón, "sabroso
hasta el último buchito" (It Tastes Good Down To
Its Last Drop). You can gather examples like these by the hundreds.
Creativity must begin with an original idea. This does not
mean that some ideas in one language cannot be replicated. I
successfully recreated my original "Pan Am Acelera Su Ritmo
Latino" not into "Pan Am Accelerates Its Latin Rhythm,
but into "Pan Am Steps Up Its Latin Beat." It only
means that every language has different psychological patterns,
and creativity works better from scratch.
Another important fact to weigh when translating English into
Spanish is that English is a mainly monosyllabic language (full
of nice, short, one-syllable words). Spanish is polysyllabic,
with long, long words, difficult to squeeze into a headline.
Because this difference makes a translation of headlines really
problematic, headlines in particular need to be recreated and
many times the best re-creations are totally different from their
English original.
Standing out among the image-damaging corrections made by
executives with poor writing ability are those performed by executives
who replace right words with wrong words. One who recently wrongly
changed a copy to read localización where dirección
was to be (anyone using the Spanglish localización
showed a horrendous illiteracy in Spanish). "Urbano"
(city as an adjective) was replaced for "de la ciudad"
showing a deplorable vocabulary, in a copy meant for an
educated market.
The above proofreading executive also tampered with a line
that could bring her legal complications. All of this, because
he or she was more concerned about presenting herself as knowledgeable
in Spanish (which she was not) than caring for the image of his
or her company.
The result? Poorly written copy with style incoherence that
reflected the executive's ignorance, damaged the image of his
or her company and could even discredit the agency because, be
sure of this, if someone asks "who wrote this copy so poorly?"
The executive in question will point his or her finger back to
the innocent advertising professional.
Fallacies on the differences in the Spanish market thrive.
It is true that the US Hispanic market is not homogeneous, but
variety is something every Hispanic is used to from birth. Fallacies
are used to steal accounts and discredit competitors. The following
are the most common and profitable fallacies about the Hispanic
Market.
- Cubans don't understand Mexicans, Mexicans don't understand
Cubans. This is like saying "don't use any New Yorker on
a commercial because Californians won't understand him."
- Not everybody understands this. It is too Cuban, too Mexican,
too intellectual, too unusual, too this, too that. Of course,
there are language differences among the numerous Latin nationalities,
but they are not insurmountable. In fact, they are much less
important than those between a New Yorker and an Aussie.
A well-produced commercial can even cross language barriers,
as proven by that famous Mexican TV commercial ¿Mantequilla?
¡Parkay! successfully shown on (English-language)
American TV. It is even easier among Latins because they are
not that hung-up on accent. In South Florida, Cooking Good chickens
and Waterbed City use performers with a heavy (I mean heavy)
American accent and the Hispanic audience finds it pleasant and
cute.
- "I asked the guy who works around here and he doesn't
understand that word." This is often said after the agency
has failed to ask its client not to seek just anyone's opinion
because he happens to speak Spanish, but only from people really
literate in Spanish. The person asked might be a cleaning lady
or a delivery boy, either with a very low language proficiency.
Keep in mind that young "bilingual" people tend
to read only in English. Therefore, US Spanish ads are not for
them. Spanish printed ads are directed to people who read in
Spanish only or mostly in Spanish. They are usually highly educated
immigrants who stick to Spanish magazines, books, etc., as their
only source of information. Uneducated people don't read -- simple
as that.
Anybody who picks up a Spanish printed media it is because
he knows the language well. Few people born and reared in the
USA get to read well in Spanish. They prefer the printed media
in English for a myriad of reasons, including quality and first-time
publication.
The above is important to know, because Anglo advertising
agencies may lose accounts in the US Hispanic market when their
Latin competitors use language tactics. A favorite one is questioning
the legibility or language usage in a copy. Thus they try to
persuade a potential customer to jump the fence. If the client
is Latin and the agency's creative team is also Latin, then this
agency is in a good position to fight back. However, when the
agency is Anglo and the client, too, is Anglo, a shrewd competitor
can easily pull the wool over the client's eyes and thus the
Anglo advertising agency becomes vulnerable.
A competitor may take over an account because a client may
be afraid of saying something wrong in a language he doesn't
know. If so, he will be easily influenced by any criticism made
against the job provided by the Anglo agency -- even when such
a job is acceptable and has been performed by a professional
in the language.
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Spanish-language
Commercials in the USA -- the funniest, the tackiest