Pitfall English
Stefano Monachesi on the pitfalls of advertising language.
Stefano Monachesi on the pitfalls of advertising languageAre you one of those happy generations who were still allowed to be children? Today we only use "kids". It sounds cooler and fits better in a short headline. The English word was imported by marketers when children became target groups - because children supposedly don't want to be treated as children. "Cracks" is another word that only people who want to reach young people use. Unlike kids, it's not even proper English. For the British, anyone who glides cool over the snow is not a snowboard crack, but "a crack snowboarder". As a noun, "a crack" is a spinner.
Which also sheds new light on the (ultimately not cool enough) newspaper name Cracks for Kids. Using "für" instead of "for" would be correct new German. But do a Google search for "Cracks for Kids". The only English search results are "Cracks for kids to fall through": (social) cracks through which children can fall.
English is full of such cracks, and advertisers fall into them again and again. That doesn't stop them from continuing to make diligent use of the global language. According to a study by the University of Hanover, thirty percent of German advertising slogans today use English expressions. In the 1980s, the figure was just three percent. Fortunately for the advertisers, their slips of the tongue are rarely noticed by the target group. They understand too little English for that.
But this opens up the next pitfall: English slogans are often not understood by consumers at all. The Cologne-based brand agency Endmark presented 1100 people with twelve current English slogans. Only two were correctly translated by more than half of them.
However, even Werbewoche could not resist the temptation to dress itself up with English words. This column, for example, is not just my opinion - it is an "opinion". That carries weight and is relevant. After all, anyone can have an opinion.
But hopefully a few more generations will pass before this newspaper is called Advertising Weekly.
> Stefano Monachesi, Editor
Which also sheds new light on the (ultimately not cool enough) newspaper name Cracks for Kids. Using "für" instead of "for" would be correct new German. But do a Google search for "Cracks for Kids". The only English search results are "Cracks for kids to fall through": (social) cracks through which children can fall.
English is full of such cracks, and advertisers fall into them again and again. That doesn't stop them from continuing to make diligent use of the global language. According to a study by the University of Hanover, thirty percent of German advertising slogans today use English expressions. In the 1980s, the figure was just three percent. Fortunately for the advertisers, their slips of the tongue are rarely noticed by the target group. They understand too little English for that.
But this opens up the next pitfall: English slogans are often not understood by consumers at all. The Cologne-based brand agency Endmark presented 1100 people with twelve current English slogans. Only two were correctly translated by more than half of them.
However, even Werbewoche could not resist the temptation to dress itself up with English words. This column, for example, is not just my opinion - it is an "opinion". That carries weight and is relevant. After all, anyone can have an opinion.
But hopefully a few more generations will pass before this newspaper is called Advertising Weekly.
> Stefano Monachesi, Editor
