Global Branding and those “Minority” Languages: Business Benefits

Superb article in the UK’s Guardian newspaper about the business benefits of branding using what are often snottily referred to as “minority” languages: Basque, Cornish, Irish, Welsh, and so on.

Read it here: Let languages shout out your business benefits.

Make no mistake, such languages offer a competitive edge for domestic and global brands. Using Irish (Gaeilge) for example drives a multi-million Euro market. Interestingly, these languages are particularly valuable to business when used in the food industry (the localization angle of which, along with sport, we do not hear about often enough).

Tayto Crisps: Irish Branding Gets Emoji. There's Irish-language Tayto Crisps too.
Ireland’s famous Tayto Crisps go emoji. There are Irish-language Tayto Crisps too. They don’t taste any the worse for Unicode! (Image: Ultan Ó Broin)

Of course, using language to engage consumers does not require sellers or buyers to be even remotely fluent in it, contrary to what Willie Brandt claimed.

Not that claims of minority language usage don’t come without their own problems.

 

Ultan O Broin
Ultan Ó Broin (@localization), is an independent UX consultant. With three decades of UX and L10n experience and outreach, he specializes in helping people ensure their global digital transformation makes sense culturally and also reflects how users behave locally. Any views expressed are his own. Especially the ones you agree with.

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