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PTI Global

Branding and Cultural Review

What is meant by “Branding and Cultural Review”?

If you anticipate entering new markets abroad or introducing new products into existing foreign markets, your marketing department needs to consider:

  • How would our proposed brand name(s) translate?
  • Are there any visual ramifications with our logo?
  • Should we leave our tag line or brand name in English?

The problem:

Possible product names or company names or tag lines that are catchy in English may have a negative or embarrassing meaning or implication in another culture. Names left in English and transferred to another culture could risk misinterpretation, confusion, or even offense. Either of these scenarios could seriously jeopardize acceptance of your brand and product abroad.

Examples:

Let’s put the shoe on the other foot. A Chinese restaurant starting up in the U.S. is named Chow Yuk. A Cultural Review in China would uncover that “chow” is slang for food and “yuk” is what English speakers say when something tastes really bad.

And everyone is familiar with the Chevy Nova being introduced into Mexico. No one thought to check, so no one realized that “no va” in Spanish means “it doesn’t go”--not a model name that predicted large volume sales for this new automobile. A huge and costly faux pas!

A PTIGlobal exclusive

When engaging us to do a Branding and Cultural Review, we consult with you on your proposed language and expected outcome.

We supply our in-country reviewer with:

  • Background information
  • Target Audience
  • Desired impact
  • Context for use

Our process checks text and images against local cultural norms, such as:

  • Humor and double entendre
  • sexual mores
  • religious beliefs
  • cultural stereotypes or “sacred cows”
  • body language, hand signals, colors

But in addition…

  • We may also elicit the reviewer’s response to leaving the suggested brand name in English.
  • We inquire about ease of pronunciation and similar sounds if the term is left in English.
  • The reviewer assesses marketing concepts like fulfillment of “brand promise”
  • We give you both a comparative and an overall risk assessment

Using local search engines, our reviewers can research the existence of same or similar names in the target country.

We have fielded evaluations for such challenging phrases and brands as “You to the Power of X”, Wingspan, ThreeSixty, Construction Management, Siteline, Athalon X2 Neo, Modus, Axiom, Edge, iExchange, and many more.

Our in-country teams and our questionnaire have been purposefully developed so that we can give you what we consider the most articulate, thorough, and usable responses in a comprehensive final report.