Last week I attended the International Digital Forum in London. The IDF is a largely unknown but fantastically excellent gathering of internationalisation specialists, where typically some blue chip companies, as well as OBAN Multilingual will take the stage and talk about their efforts, their struggles and what they have learned from their attempts to either expand, or optimise their operations in various countries and foreign languages.
I almost never get enthusiastic about events. However, IDF seems to have managed to become an exception; one of the main reasons for my enthusiasm (and why I am definitely inviting my hotel clients for the October encore) is a combination of truly cutting-edge information on what is important in an international arena, and the immediacy and honesty of the speakers (this time it was OBAN, Fujitsu and Wiggle).
Unlike the “look-at-me” presentations that one gets to attend so often, the speakers were refreshingly honest about what they learned from each market. In fact the snippets of accumulated wisdom (usually on the back of entertaining misunderstandings) make IDF an event that is as much fun as one can have at work (at least without breaking some important rules). I basically cannot recommend it enough.
One of the most interesting and entertaining parts of the day was when the head of marketing at Wiggle spoke about their success in Japan, the truly intelligent and unique efficiencies in their operations (that clearly played a significant role in their enviable growth), but also the truly funny occasions where things didn’t go quite as planned.
As Far East languages are very often a central point in our discussions with our customers, I stayed after the event and spoke to some of OBAN’s managers about Japan…
I thought that this time round, instead of giving you the load-down of the details, I might as well just show you a small highlight of what I think was the main point: Cultural differences going beyond the language itself.
The example below shows how someone as well-equipped and proficient as mighty INTEL understands that not all markets should be treated the same.
The link here, will open a new window that will show you INTEL’s advert of what they have coined as Ultrabook laptop computers (think MacBook Air, and you are there).
Now, the link here, will show you how INTEL had to slightly change this Western world advert to better connect to their Japanese audience…
Food for thought!
Best,
Yannis Anastasakis
CEO ehotelworks
www.ehotelworks.com
@ehoteworks
Multilingual Electronic Marketing 