An odd thing happened this month on Coca-Cola’s Facebook page in the U.S.: a foreign-language posting.

The post, written in Portuguese to celebrate Student Day, was evidently a geotagging glitch in the brand’s global Facebook program. But the technical mishap set off such a vitriolic wave of xenophobia amongst U.S. fans that — according to AdAge Mobile — the global soft drink manufacturer was forced to remove the remarks from the page. Evidently, not unprecedented, the Coke incident was preceded by a similar incident in 2009 when BestBuy asked its Facebook fans whether they thought it should have a Spanish site.

In an era of borderless global social media, Localspeak— a company that specializes in multilingual brand communications— was struck by the mono-cultural rage posted by American fans. This Facebook incident prompted us to reread the white paper Global Social Media Usage and the Language Factor Lionbridge, published by L10NBridge in 2010.

The white paper, which reported the findings of a large-scale, global survey of approximately 3,800 social media users, explored cross-national differences in business and personal use of social media; social media platform popularity by country; top languages used to create social media, and social media use preferences for English v. local language. While local language preference in social media usage varied widely, the prevalent trend showed significant local language predilection over English among nearly half of the top 10 countries surveyed: China 86%; Finland 38%; Italy 78%; France 63%; Spain 60%. Further, an average of 25% of those surveyed reported they are translating social media.

Yet, as AdAge Mobile reporter Matt Creamer also conjectured— that some people seem to think Facebook is a uniquely American brand—that thought is far from the truth:

“An estimated 80% of Facebook’s active users are outside the U.S., with (Portuguese-speaking) Brazil and India growing at a rate of 23% and 11%, respectively, between February and May 2011, according to ComScore. That’s compared to 4% growth in the U.S over the same time period. If Mark Zuckerberg and company want to get to 1 billion users, they’ll need that international growth, and if they want to properly monetize the network, they’ll need those global brands to be able to act globally.”

As Creamer suggests:

“The episode provided an interesting glimpse at ideas of how geography-less social networks interact with ideas of nation, which is a doctoral dissertation waiting to be written if there ever was one.”

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Last month’s launch of Levi’s® worldwide integrated marketing campaign— the first in the company’s 138-year history— continues to reap accolades for its artistic expression, with Levi’s brand sentiment trending favorably in the social media universe.

Artfully produced by Levi’s agency Wieden+Kennedy and launched this month on Levi’s Facebook page, the brand’s latest “Go Forth” campaign, titled “Levi’s Legacy — Now Is Our Time” will span 24 countries across the Americas, Europe, and Asia-Pacific regions. The 60-second spots feature scenes of young men and women clad in denim from Berlin to the Baltic Sea, set against a Tom Waits-like reading of the poem “The Laughing Heart,” by American poet, novelist and short story writer Charles Bukowski. Each of the spots is subtitled in-language for the country in which it airs.

Brands consistently localize, or globalize their marketing campaigns. I recall working with W+K on a localization campaign for the Nike World Cup Latin America in the 1980s, proceeding the days of YouTube and the prescient viral Internet. Back then we called it “adaptation,” perhaps to provide some sort of theatrical resonance, or dissociate from all the technical global localization of the day. In those days localization/adaptation was an intense and expensive process that not only involved on-location shooting, but endless telephone meetings with W+K creative in the U.S. and in-country Nike corporate and brand managers.

Today’s new social media analytics tools such as NetBase’s Insight Workbench help brands quickly respond to objectionable sentiment, messaging or quick shifts in the social climate that might mitigate running an ad according to original plan. To wit, the awkward timing of Levi’s Legacy campaign in the UK which, given the recent rioting, forced Levi’s to pull the ad from UK general circulation. However, Levi’s kept the ad live on its website and Facebook page, prompting it to go viral.

As one Twitter post objected:
Fronting up to riot police to sell jeans...the timing of this new Levi’s spot is spectacularly bad http://bit.ly/nho9bs.
source

Another post lamented the absence of parodies that previously had been uploaded on YouTube surrounding Levi’s Go Forth Braddock, PA campaigns, even suggesting a theme:

If you would be so kind as to restrain yourselves from looting/setting fire to any Levi’s Stores that may be in the path of your self expression/rampage that would be most appreciated. It [any Levi’s Stores]’s a shame t-mobile aren’t producing their highly irritating spoof viral dance ads anymore.
SocialNetworks, 08/11/2011

Creative Review writer Eliza Williams raised other issues, more along the lines of marketing integrity: Levi’s is far from the first brand to want to co-opt the romanticism and danger of protest imagery for commercial gain. And looking more deeply into the mission statement that accompanies the ad on the website, Levi’s is clearly trying to instigate positive action with the campaign (in particular support for the charity water.org). But should brands really be dabbling with the language and imagery of political protest to sell products? Especially when the issues behind such action, as has been proven lately, are often far more complex than brands are ultimately comfortable with engaging in?

Although the world has changed, W+K’s fabled reputation for artistry and inspirational messaging has remained true to form, as witnessed by favorable social media net sentiment during the first week of the campaign launch in the Insight Workbench chart below.

Levi’s social net sentiment, global English ('Go Forth' filtered) — July-August

We noticed another localized viral ad from Nissan titled Maldição do Ponei (The Curse of the Pony) also had come under fire at launch in Brazil. Up in arms about the ad’s content frightening their children, Brazilian mothers demanded its withdrawal. Clearly Nissan and its creative agency hadn’t considered the potential sensitivity of Brazilian mothers and hadn’t done its cultural sensitivity consulting or testing—a given in brand localization.

While social unrest cannot be foreseen in the development and production of marketing campaigns, cultural legerdemain—especially in today’s more social world— has become a prerequisite to responsible global brand positioning and messaging. Today the tools and talent abound to quickly repair, if not thwart disapproval altogether.

Nanette Gobel joined Localspeak as a French and German language specialist, assisting our clients with the creative adaption of advertising and marketing campaigns and packaging content, as well as videogame voiceovers. She also serves as a translator for marketing research surveys.

An active member of the American Translator Association, Nanette is ATA-certified in both the French and German languages, regularly translating materials for print, TV, film, and related business media outlets. She serves as a regular interpreter for American Express, Sketchers, and Netflix, and she has contributed to marketing campaigns at L’Oreal, Microsoft, and Hewlett-Packard, among others. She honed her specialty in creative adaption working at Theme Park Productions, where she translated content for the opening of the film-themed addition to Disneyland Paris.

In addition to her translation duties, she writes the translation industry column for aiaConnect, the global life sciences industry news publication, and freelances as both a Hollywood dialect coach and voiceover talent. Her feature film contributions include Alias, Munich and Taken.

A native of Germany, Nanette graduated the University of Berlin and later attended the Sorbonne, earning her Masters degree in French Language and Literature and Media Communications. She currently resides in Santa Monica, CA