Why does the issue of language in advertising arouse such strong feelings? What are some of the complexities involved? Folio invited me to open a window on their perspective, outlining some of the challenges that professional language practitioners experience in this regard.
Afrikaans readers who are passionate about their language have probably noticed that their daily newspapers feature mostly Afrikaans advertisements, but sometimes an English ad, or worse, a bit of an English ad, such as a headline, slogan or a payoff line, will suddenly creep in somewhere.
This might be in an ad in the middle pages of a supplement or on a page deep inside the main body of the paper. All too often English pamphlets and brochures are inserted into Afrikaans dailies. Then there are the Anglisismes that crop up in copy that has not been properly translated by a professional Afrikaans mother-tongue translator.
Adding insult to injury
Adding insult to injury, shocking grammatical and spelling mistakes. In mid-November 2011, Die Burger featured a large ad for a new "yskaatsbaan" (ysskaatsbaan). This unforgivable spelling mistake appeared in a big bold headline!
Who knows how many readers have objected to poorly translated advertising text from companies who are trying to sell them their goods and services? If they feel sufficiently insulted, they'll simply avoid those purveyors.
Says Marli Viljoen of Folio Translation Consultants, "Carelessness like this is disrespectful to the Afrikaans consumer. Advertisers should be aware that Afrikaans-speakers and speakers of all the other indigenous languages of South Africa are fiercely loyal to their respective languages.
"After all, they face an ongoing battle for cultural preservation in the face of English hegemony. This is not only the problem of Afrikaans, but of virtually all languages internationally. In particular, it is the smaller ones [which] are the most threatened, partly because they are regarded as economically less viable. This perception is often based on assumption rather than statistics."
Buying power
The buying power of Afrikaans-speaking consumers is a force to be reckoned with in the South African economy. Approximately six million people speak Afrikaans as a first language, which accounts for 13% of the population. Almost half of this group are middle- and high-income earners, with an LSM rating of 9 or 10. Recent research has revealed that 18% of Afrikaans households have a household income in excess of R25 000 per month.
This situation creates a dilemma for media executives. At Media24, which has many Afrikaans titles in its stable, including Beeld and Rapport, a policy of "Only Afrikaans ads for Afrikaans platforms" has long been in place. This would imply a commitment to translated or transcreated advertising copy, as well as recognition of the power and potential of Afrikaans as a language of creativity.
However, the policy is very difficult to implement, partly because of pressure from certain monolingual advertisers who do not understand the value to their brand of translating advertisements that have been created in English. Stepping up to the plate by refusing to accept such ads for Afrikaans titles can have a disastrous impact on advertising revenue.
Trends
In the early stages of the digital revolution, how is this playing out on our screens? A quick survey of the home pages of the websites of several Afrikaans titles revealed some interesting trends.
On this home page, four out of five ads were in Afrikaans and one was in English, for brides from the Ukraine! The Afrikaans ads often typified corporate advertising that is willing to translate the text of the message, but unwilling to translate the company name or slogan.
The more salacious the publication, the less attention is paid to language purity in the advertising. Perhaps they reckon the viewers are so steamed up they don't care:
Tip of the iceberg
Powerful advertisements such as the trophy-winners in the recent Pendoring Awards might suggest that all is well in the world of Afrikaans advertising, but unfortunately ads such as these represent the snowflake at the tip of the iceberg.
The winner of the 2011 print ad section was Draftfcb for client Die Burger, showing a homeless man sleeping under a newspaper with a headline that screamed "Malema bou16M Paleis". The visual impact of this ad was enormous, the verbal impact, somewhat less.
The project managers at Folio Translation Consultants based in Pepper Street, Cape Town, are at the coalface and they say that standards in Afrikaans advertising are slipping steadily.
Taken seriously
MD Philip Zietsman recollects a time when the matter of accessing the Afrikaans-speaking target market was taken seriously. "The creative department of advertising agencies would consult the Afrikaans translators from the outset. We'd be asked whether a concept would work in Afrikaans and, if not, they'd have to come up with an alternative creative strategy."
What are the other problems that routinely crop up with regard to Afrikaans advertising or more specifically, the translation of English advertisements into Afrikaans that contribute to the steady erosion of quality?
English > Afrikaans is used for the sake of convenience in the following examples, but similar problems undoubtedly occur when translating ads into the remaining nine official languages of SA:
Fonts are reduced and tempers are lost. Then finally, the translators come across the actual ad to find that the designer has clearly thought 'to hell with it - I hate these hyphens', resulting in three Afrikaans words being used. This is sure to grate on the eye of the reader.
As with most creative work, it seems so effortless on the surface, but of course it is anything but:
Bottom line
The bottom line? Companies should realise that, by creating original copy in Afrikaans and all the other languages of their target markets, or at the very least having it professionally translated, they're investing in their brands and building valuable brand loyalty.
Pendoring Awards GM Franette Klerck puts it succinctly: "As the impact of a commercial message in a target market's home language is so much greater, marketers who heed this truth should reap rich financial benefits".
Note: This article was written by Andrea le Sueur on behalf of Folio Translation Consultants, Cape Town.