German Advertising Campaigns

I was just sitting, gazing out the window, trying to stir something up within me, proving to myself that, hey, I am alive, when I saw, across the street a sign for the Douglas store. Douglas is a store here in Germany that sells perfumes of all kinds. They had a bit of a blunder a couple of years back when they first came out with their new ad slogan.

Whereas in the late 80s and early 90s, the “in” thing for every successful ad campaign in Europe was dependant upon some kind of very short, quippy ad campaign using, at least partially, some kind of French text, the late 90s to the present has required all really great ads to be given that international flair by writing them in English. This poses a slight problem, in that there are some ads out there that simply would not make it past the chopping block of an ad agency in America. But, ads that may theoretically send the wrong message in an English-speaking country do not pose such a threat here in Germany. Instead, here, the ad maker, one assumes, simply hopes that the public will, at the very least, be able to understand the ad in English, or some semblance thereof, without having to worry about some kind of contextual underpinning. (This leads to bathroom air fresheners called “Rentokill”, a giant street-cleaning vacuum called the “Glutton”, “ProLife” vitamins, and motorcycles lovingly dubbed “Motards.”)

What is funny, though, is what happened to poor Douglas. In this case, the opposite of what can normally happen (that someone who speaks English as their native tongue sees the ad and bursts out laughing) happened. Unfortunately for Douglas, many Germans have learned English in some class many years ago, or, better yet, may be a bit older and have never had a real course of some kind.

So, when Douglas came up with their ad: “Douglas. Come in and find out”, many understood, with little trouble, the first part, that one should come in to their nearest Douglas store. But, “find out”, when translated directly into German, means something more like “find your way out.” You can imagine how put out many Germans were to see the sign to their neighborhood Douglas store that said “Douglas, come in and find your way out.” How rude.