[Sigia-l] Internationalization

[jon at spin.ie]

> 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.

Living there at the time I thought it was fair "turn about" after all the jokes which responded to "Ulster Says No" with "The man from Del Monté says 'Yes', and he's an Orangeman."

Seriously though, the problem there lay more with the term "orange" than the colour itself. Generally connotations that words or expressions may have will be dealt with by normal translation work.