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In the same way as the businessman adapts his products to the customers’ tastes, it also seems logical that he should put his advertising message out in the customers’ language. Because, in the end, adapting to the customers’ language is simply another way of adapting to their preferences.  |
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Many companies alter their products according to the preferences of each group of consumers. For example, the flavours of the soft drinks produced by multinationals such as Coca-Cola vary from one country to another. And restaurants in the Pizza-Hut chain offer foods incorporating ingredients typical of each country where the company operates. To give an example of a Catalan company, the sandwiches sold by Pans & Company vary according to whether you order them in Tarragona or in Lisbon. If you go to an establishment in Portugal you can have the Barcelona sandwich — with chicken breast, vegetables and mayonnaise, but it is not called this in the city from which it takes its name, where it is the Vegetal sandwich. Apart from the names of the products, fast food companies like Pans & Company adapt to local tastes: spreading the bread with tomato pulp and changing the ingredients of the salads according to the traditions of each country where they are active.
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In the same way as the businessman adapts his products to the customers’ tastes, it also seems logical that he should put his advertising message out in the customers’ language. Because, in the end, adapting to the customers’ language is simply another way of adapting to their preferences.
In the case of Internet, the company web accomplishes a double purpose:
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It gives an image of the company, is its presentation on Internet and functions as a company shop window open 24 hours a day all over the world. The company is on Internet with the intention of achieving a branding.
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Apart from this informative
or promotional role and if the businessman
wishes, the company web can become
a transaction platform: it can offer
the company catalogue of products and
services, which can then be acquired
or engaged at the traditional shops
or sales points (trade in person),
and it can also offer commercial transactions
through Internet (electronic trade).
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In both cases, the company is on Internet for the purpose of recruiting customers and making them loyal.
Internet is a global medium of communication,
interaction and transactions between companies
and people anywhere in the world. In practice,
however, it is often used as a local means
to carry out transactions which until now
could only take place through personal or
telephone attention or through the post.
The
dual nature, global yet close, of Internet
| communications,
means that the use of several |
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Thisglobal-local duality of Internet has given rise to the concept de glocalization, on which several international bodies are working. Prestige magazines such as Global Networks: A Journal of Transnational Affairs (http://www.globalnetworksjournal.com/) lay an emphasis on the distinction between global and local markets. With regard toglocalization, there are international conferences (http://glocalforum.existhost.com/...) and specific publications (http://glocalforum.existhost.com/...) which analyse this phenomenon. Further, there are prizes such as the ELECT Best Global Website Award (http://www.bestglobalwebsiteaward.com/) which have the purpose of the promotion and recognition of multilingual webs designed to market products and services globally but respecting the characteristic natures of local markets. |
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languages, allowing the user a
choice of |
language, improves the services supplied through
this medium. |
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| When a company informs, advertises, attends to customers or sells through Internet it has to bear in mind that its service can have a very wide territorial spread — perhaps global — but that its customer will always be local, that is to say, will have certain characteristics and will be linked to a territory, a culture and a specific language. It is possible that the company sees its web as a window to the world, but it must also see it
as a showcase and sales counter, placed within its customers’ homes or offices. Because Internet is above all a tool which brings proximity to the customers, since it promotes communication between the company and the customers in their own familiar surroundings, where they feel comfortable (the intimacy of the home, the privacy of the work place). This is why it is such a good idea for the company to adapt the service and communication to their cultural and linguistic environment. |
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