[Sigia-l] Internationalization

[Michael Heraghty]

 --- SalvadorPardo <salvador at salvadorpardo.com> wrote:

> When Terra Lycos started to operate in Chile they
> realized that the orange
> colour was associated to bad luck in that culture.
> And there was a problem
> about it, because orange is the colour of that
> brand.

I have another cultural example involving the colour
orange -- in fact, a company called Orange, which is a
large mobile phone operator in the UK and Europe (see
www.orange.co.uk).

When the company was launching its service in Northern
Ireland, it used the same ad campaign that had been
successful elsewhere in the UK, with the message: "The
Future is Orange."

Unfortunately, the colour orange has huge cultural
connotations in N. Ireland, since it is associated
with the protestant tradition, and the "orange order"
association, whose "orangemen" hold marching parades
(some of them extremely controversial, as they are
held in Catholic areas) each summer. The statement
"the future is orange" was extremely offensive to the
Catholic minority in N.Ireland, and the company
withdrew the ads.

-- Michael Heraghty
www.mediajunk.com
www.michaelheraghty.com


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