We had a team from Watford on placement at our agency.
James was English, Mike was from America.
Mike and his wife were enjoying exploring London, seeing the things they’d read about.
I was explaining that London, west of Tower Bridge, was the tourist part, east of Tower Bridge was the really interesting part.
On the north side of the river are the pubs where ‘Hanging’ Judge Jeffries hanged his victims while three tides passed over them, just to make sure they were dead.
On the south side of the river is a church partially made from the timbers of the Mayflower, and the captain is buried in the grounds.
Mike asked me if there were any good restaurants.
I said my favourite was The Wapping Project.
A disused pumping-station with all the machinery left in place and the tables and chairs placed amongst it.
I love that place.
On Saturday evening I got a text from Mike saying he was showing his wife around the area, he asked what the name of that restaurant was again.
So I texted back “Wapping Project” then I thought, as a student he may not be able to afford a cab.
So I texted “Get off at Wapping underground, turn right and it’s about 200 yds on the left”.
Then I thought, as a student he may not be able to afford the prices.
So I texted again “Opposite is The Prospect of Whitby, the oldest pub in London”.
On Monday, I asked Mike if he went to the restaurant.
What he next said made me think.
He said he was surprised at the detail of my reply.
He said, for an American the correct answer to the question was the name of the restaurant, nothing more.
He showed his wife my text as an example of the way the English answer questions.
Mike’s wife said “Yeah, it’s almost kinda creepy.”
And I realised I’d given more information than was asked for, or wanted.
What to me had seemed like good manners, had come across as unctuous, even obsequious.
And I remembered, when I was in New York as a youngster I had to get used to that.
The two cities had completely different concepts of good manners.
In London good manners meant being as helpful as possible.
In New York it was simply answering a question.
New Yorkers were happier with a one word answer.
That’s why they never said please or thank you.
It was seen as unnecessary.
Time wasting.
I was talking to Ed McCabe about this at lunch.
Peter Mead told Ed off for not saying thank you to the waiter.
Ed said “Why would I do that, the guy’s just doing the job he’s paid to do?”
I explained to Ed that was exactly why we did it.
Other countries, like Germany and Japan for instance, have what we call a ‘kiss up, piss down’ culture.
You kiss the arse of the person above you and piss on the person below.
Whereas we consider it the sign of a civilised society that the strong should take care of the weak.
Which is why you are always polite to the people below you.
The people you don’t want anything from.
I learned a lot from the difference between London and New York’s attitudes.
I learned how important it is to be able to see things from other people’s point of view.
And, if we’re in the communication business, other people’s POV should be our default setting.
We need to be in a state of constant enquiry.
Because we can’t communicate unless we start from where they are.
In this case, it isn’t that they’re being rude.
They think they’re being polite by not wasting your time.
I was thinking about this recently in relation to coke.
How a brand can be global but at the same time have such different cultural specific attributions.
Even in one country this can be true.
In the east of Germany coke is to some still a symbol of a new era after the wall.
Whilst in west Germany these sentiments are completely different.
If I read your post correctly you imply a global or even in some cases national campaign will never be as effective as a local one?
Smaller shops everywhere?
Paul,
It’s an interesting point.
I don’t think there are any hard-and-fast rules, but there are principles.
Have a look at this post (on that subject) and see what you think:
http://davetrott.campaignlive.co.uk/2012/01/24/the-hilton-theory-of-advertising/#more-1134
Interesting seeing the fuss that is being made about the Sainsbury’s assistant who wouldn’t serve the woman talking on her mobile. I think it’s a sign of a civilised society that you pay attention to the waiter/shop assistant/plumber/whatever who is helping you. We’re in the art of pesuasion, and part of that is showing people that you’re aware of them, interested in them, grateful to them. I remember holding a door open for a woman in NYC, and her saying to me, ‘You must be English’. I wasn’t wearing a bowler hat or a Union Jack waistcoat, so I asked her how she knew. She just pointed at the door, smiled and walked away… Manners to me, harrassment to others…
.
Tom,
The New York thing is true.
I used to hold doors open for people and they’d walk through without saying anything.
That used to drive me nuts.
My sister told me the way to defuse it for myself was simply to say “You’re welcome” to their retreating back.
Worked perfectly for me.
They didn’t get it until a few steps later and then usually they were embarrassed.
Interesting read. A few thoughts.
I once told my girlfriend that wherever I am, seeing a McDonalds makes me think ‘Like it is at home”.
They are time/space travel vortexes in a way.
Also, someone who travels a lot might find it more pleasant to their senses to keep as much as possible ceteris paribus.
As if these brands sell ‘security’. Regrettably, some people value that a lot.
Although I agree wealthier people who are accustomed to more luxury are more likely to use the same products and that it is international.
I reckon there is something else.
They are often higher educated and (also because they travel) so on more tangible to cross cultural references.
They make a better audience for global campaigns.
Albeit I don’t think the jetset is a homogenous as you maintained.
There is always that old versus new money kind of feel among them.
Some would never drive a Lamborghini but instead go for an Aston Martin.
Whilst others would. Geographically this is also separable (even downright to different neighbourhoods).
I always think it is about they way they think of money.
Some cultures are more likely to show it, spend it on Lamborghini’s.
While others with the same amount of wealth will only buy a second hand Mercedes M.
Some products suit both (maybe the Hilton is one), but should they be targeted in the same manner?
I doubt it.
Moët-Chandon knew this and went for the nouveau riche in the past decade.
They sold a lot more.
I reckon the old money made a more sustainable target market, when the noveau riche is tired of Moët-Chandon I see problems for them.
The old money is now drinking Mumm, they won’t easily return.
This is somewhat similar to your Burberry post recently, the brand has devalued with others because of this.
But what do I know, I’m not even in advertising yet.
Paul, another great example of a brand becoming devalued is YSL. 60s iconic, 90s naff.
Paul, generalisation, I know, but I worked on BA’s account, trying to get wealthy Gulf Arabs to fly BA. They would travel a lot, spend a fortune (one family regularly booked the entire First Class cabin!), but they never wanted to leave the security bubble. Once in London, they would head up to the Arab area of Edgware Road, eat at the Lebanese restaurants there, smoke in the shisha cafes… I would ask why they’d come to London, a cosmopolitan city with a wealth of cultures, history and so on. The answer was always the same: ‘Whiteleys, Selfridges, Harrods’. Where they’d buy exactly the same things that they could have bought in the malls back home.
Tom,
I just had exactly that conversation with my wife.
Why go to Orchard Road in Singapore, or Fifth Avenue in New York, or Rodeo Drive in LA, when it’s exactly the same shops as Bond Street in London?
Surely you go to a pub in London, a diner in LA or NY, a kopi-teum in Singapore, a sushi bar in Tokyo, a cafe in Paris.
Tom and Dave, talking about POV, it a really Western idea to get a ‘taste’ of a local culture. Whatever you think politically about this stuff, I think it is safe to say that ‘we’ in the West like that taste and feel enriched when we get a taste of foreign/other stuff.
At the other end of the scope I have a friend from Japan who has lived about twenty years in The Netherlands and recently returned to Japan.
He told me once that the first year he traveled through Europe and took about 10.000 photographs (on film) as it is custom in Japan to photograph what you come across on your travels abroad…everything. He stopped because the Dutch weren’t interested in his photographs but asked him how it was and what he had seen, what he ate, what the weather was like and all sorts. His travels later on he experienced quit different, more experiencing than beholding. I asked him what he liked better, he told me the beholding and taking pictures because it was less intrusive (needless to say when digital camera’s emerged he switched back to taking photographs). Later on I learned that this is also embedded in (zen) Buddhist philosophy and other parts of Japanese culture and social interaction.
Paul, I used to live on the street opposite the Albert Memorial. Virtually every day, I would see a coachload of Japanese tourists, who would pile out of the bus, photograph each other standing in front of the Albert Memorial, then pile back on the coach for the next photo-opportunity. No examining the Memorial, the ornate sculptures, the intricate use of different materials, the cultural symbolism of Empire and all it meant. They ‘looked’ but they didn’t ‘see’. And if you don’t see, you might as well just make up a photo album of you and your beloved photoshopped into library shots…
Dave, you’re absolutely right about going to a pub in Britain, a hawker stall in Singapore, a souk in Oman. Remember the craze for ‘Irish pubs’, where you took perfectly good boozers and dressed them up with a container-load of tat to create an inauthentic experience? (I believe there’s even a company which will ship you the stuff to order.) Maybe one of the problems with today’s advertising is that it’s retelling (and retailing) inauthentic experience, stuff plucked out of a research document and a client strategy rather than human experience?
Tom, I agree with you and wonder what the future hold. it’s why I chose be holding instead of seeing as to me the word beholding always indicates a distance of engagement between the subject matter and the one looking at it.
A lovely example of Grice’s Cooperative Principle & I reckon it was the maxim of quantity that was being flouted, nicely intermingled with cross-cultural misunderstandings! Cross-cultural mediation can be challenging at times for linguists. I recall a lecture where the trainer was recounting a story about a court case where the accused was wearing a “beanie hat”. The interpreter was expected to interpret from the source language (let’s say English) into the target language. But the word ‘beanie’ didn’t exist in the the target language and there was no cultural equivalence. So, the interpreter translated “Beanie” as [the hat of David] “Beckham” and the idea was conveyed visually.
The [English speaking] sign language interpreter trainer then recounted a tale of giving a talk to a Hungarian audience (I believe), describing the various roles practitioners take on and used the idiom “It depends which hat you’re wearing.” This seemed to work fine and didn’t pose a problem for the spoken language interpreter translating his talk, until the speaker spoke of the problems that can occur when you wear more than one hat. Being a interpreter who works with visual languages, he started to ‘stack’ his hats on top of one another on his head to symbolise wearing multiple hat/roles simultaneously. At that point, the audience started to fall about laugh. The trainer was confused as he hadn’t said anything funny. It was then that the interpreter explained the cultural equivalence of the hat idiom that s/he had used was [it depends] ‘which horse you’re riding’ and that worked up until the point the speaker started to stack his hats… In terms of audience design, maybe the speaker could have avoided using that particular idiom – easily understood by an English speaking audience but requires ‘unpacking’ for non-speakers of English. There again, it created the opportunity to illustrate how it’s good to know where the speaker is heading. Had the interpreter known in advance that the speaker’s talk would include extended use of that particular metaphor, would s/he have made other lexical choices?
Another trainer spoke about being a sojourner when learning a language, so you become immersed in not just the language, but the culture and that helps you to become a better cultural and linguistic mediator at the interface where the two parties meet. A great post. Thanks
Tricia,
I worked as a copywriter in New York and I know exactly what you mean about needing to be immersed in the culture as well as the language.
Fags, pants, suspenders, fenders, vest, van, bus, fanny, biscuits……
When in Rome…