Marketing that speaks to our hearts.

I live in a remarkable continent and country, South Africa.
Our country’s ‘brand’ motto or ‘strap line’ is ‘!ke e: Ixarra llke’. Khoisan for ‘Unity in Diversity’

In South Africa we speak 11 different languages but are 1 people.
The late Nelson Mandela or ‘Tata’ (Zulu & Xhosa for father) as he was affectionately named; summed this up perfectly when he said:

‘If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.”

As global marketers we need to constantly audit and improve on our strategies and plans. If we don’t we stagnate and this resonates through the brand and ultimately customer loyalty.

What I find surprising is that after over 21 years of our country’s young democracy we still have not incorporating local languages within our advertising campaigns. While this might appear to be impossible in traditional published media like press and print. It is possible in Digital Media.

A few years ago Apurimac Africa introduced a pioneering new Ad Format called the ‘Language Banner’ as an innovative solution for Africa’s largest bank Standard Bank for their English, French and Portuguese markets it operates within.

We saw how the results from this campaign exceeded all our expectations. This success was lauded in the short term but archived for the long term. 
I challenge all Marketers from banks, autos to FMCG to ask your brand teams, when last did you approve digital creative material for a campaign in all your languages and why not?

I guarantee this small improvement will increase the relevance of your brand, its message and loyalty than any other marketing method in the short term.

Let’s celebrate all our marketing and business successes in all our languages, Tata would be proud!

@WillJNGreen