CogBlog

In 1997 I co-founded COGBOX in with Michelle DeCol. Since then we've offered online marketing, web development and corporate and brand identity to a wide range of clients. Here I post thoughts and comments on search marketing, recent projects, and other things I find interesting.

The Noble Toilet

Published Thursday, March 23, 2006 by chris | E-mail this post

I was speaking yesterday to Christopher Liechty about cross-cultural design. Christopher is an expert in this field. His company Meyer & Liechty helps businesses translate their brand, products, services, and communications to other cultures. We were chatting about a COGBOX client that offers multiple language versions of their website, and occasions where mis-understandings may arise by using literal language translations without consideration of the broader cultural perceptions and values.

Christopher had a great example of just this kind of thing. He speaks fluent Mandarin, and pointed me to the site of a Chinese advertising agency that may need to re-think their positioning for the English-speaking markets.

I'll let you enjoy it for yourself, but apparently the toilet is held in very high esteem in China.
http://www.meikao.com/english/index-e.asp

(and BTW this is a very well-respected agency in China)