Page 184 - Aamir Rehman - Dubai & Co Global Strategies for Doing Business in the Gulf States-McGraw-Hill (2007)

168 Dubai & Co.

GCC-country buyers. The most basic form of this is product
labeling: using Arabic on product packages to make it easier for
non-English speakers to identify and purchase products. Most
consumer product companies have taken this simple step—from
4
giants like Coca-Cola and Sprite to smaller companies like Snapple
(see Figure 6.4).

Figure 6.4 Bilingual packaging is common in the GCC countries

As is visible on the Crest box, the norm is bilingual packag-
ing—not Arabic-only. The packaging can therefore be understood
by almost the entire target audience. In print and television adver-
tising, the most direct way to customize is to take global ads,
taglines, and brand messages and translate them into Arabic. Often
this is the most effective way to maintain consistent brand messages
across markets. Table 6.1 illustrates how HSBC, McDonald’s, and
others—all of which invest heavily in creating globally consistent
brands—use Arabic-language taglines in the GCC that are identical
or similar to their global taglines.
HSBC and McDonald’s have taken their global taglines and
translated them, with slight modification to reflect grammatical
norms and linguistic elegance. Ford’s adaptation captures the non-
technical connotation of the word “drive,” in order to reflect the
spirit of the brand message more. Snickers and Gillette likewise
adapt their taglines to convey the sense of the original message
using quite different words.