I saw these today on
Ads of The World:
Nice ads, simple idea, well-executed. But as with many campaigns I see on AOTW that were created for non-Anglophone countries, I scratched my head and wondered how they would work in Spanish.
You see, it's become common practice for agencies around the world to create parallel English-language print campaigns so that unilingual Anglos, as well as
ESL people from other language groups, can evaluate and share their ideas in blogs and award shows. Sometimes the
headlines are poorly translated. Other times, the agency puts a lot of effort into adapting the concept.
With a copy-based campaign like this, depending so heavily on words-within-words, I assumed the latter — and was quite impressed. But then I tracked down the original-language versions at the
Medicus site:
The body copy is in Spanish, but the headline is the same. I guess the client was convinced that every member of their target market read English well enough to get the concept, and wouldn't mind that it was in a foreign language.
A couple of other notes about "international" versions of campaigns:
- The client only showed three executions, while the portfolio piece shows five.
- The client version has body copy and a call to action, whereas the portfolio piece drops it and goes landscape — billboard version, or just Creative Director's choice to keep it "clean"?
Have you seen other examples of English ads created for audiences within a non-English country? I'd love to see them.
