They Think So Little Of Us…

…that they just can’t be bothered to make us our own advert. It’s something of a pet hate for me and one that I referred to briefly in an earlier post (A Time And A Place). The basis of it is that companies make an advert abroad that is utterly inappropriate for the UK market, but just can’t be bothered to modify it. The cost of putting it right is often minimal – certainly less than a prime time slot – but they just fob the UK off with it anyway.

I have nothing against adverts from abroad if they are relevant – e.g. the fantastic Levi 501 adverts of the ‘80s and ‘90s were obviously filmed in the USA, but their American-ness was actually essential to the brand. What is an issue is where the content just doesn’t work. There are three broad categories for this happening:

1. Dodgy dubbing – adverts where the dubbing is worse than a kung fu film.
A good current example of this is the advert for Cremosa lollipops (www.chupachups.co.uk/). The advert is blatantly Italian but dubbed appallingly into English by actors whose voices sound nothing like the original characters look – why couldn’t they just have filmed it again with British actors? It wouldn’t have cost much as the ad itself is pretty basic.

2. Continental Cars – adverts where the car shown is left-hand drive.
A guilty party for this is Saab (www.saab.co.uk) – their ad for the 93 shows a car driven with left-hand controls. Most companies just have tinted windows on the cars so it is impossible to tell – a simple fix that shows some sensitivity for their potential customers.
Saab show their cars with left-hand drive controls in adverts - although to be fair they have interior shots on their website with right-hand drive.

3. Awful Americanisms – adverts for the US market that are foisted on the UK
Just because we share a common language (or are divided by one, depending on your opinion), it doesn’t mean that American ads will work here. I have already referred to the appalling Coors advert, but another guilty party is Burger King (www.burgerking.co.uk/) who show an office full of hungry burger-loving Americans. I, for one, just can not identify with that. Of course, as I have already said, the very American nature of a product can work – Coca Cola do it well, as do Levi – but it is a tricky balancing act and care should be taken.

There are a lot of adverts on TV that are made abroad but you might not know. I spend a lot of time (being sad!) looking for tell-tale signs, but I usually fail. This is because the advertisers showed some sensitivity for the foreign market – for example is the Renault Megane advert French or British?

Of course, it works both ways and I would feel equally annoyed if I were Spanish but had to watch British adverts (I saw a few last time I was there and felt for the Spanish consumer). I don’t dislike foreign adverts because they are foreign – I dislike them because they suggest to me that the advertisers just couldn’t care less…

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