Fr: Andy Le
A Marketing Disaster
A salesman returns from his assignment in Saudi Arabia, where he went to sell them a new brand of Coca-Cola.Seeing his crestfallen face, a friend asks him: "Why the long face?"
The salesman replied: "I failed in Saudi-Arabia, the campaign was a total failure."
"Why is that?" Asked the friend, "I thought you had a good campaign running."
"Well, when I got posted there, I was very confident that I would make a great sales pitch to the Saudis. But I had a problem - I didn't speak Arabic, so I planned to convey the meaning of the message with the use of three images:
First poster: A man lying in the hot desert sand in utter exhaustion, he has fainted.
Second poster: The man is drinking the new Coca-Cola brand.
Third poster: Our man is now totally refreshed and feeling great.
I had these posters pasted all over the place. You couldn't go anywhere without seeing them."
"Terrific! That should have worked!" said the friend.
"The heck it should have!" said the salesman.
"Only no one told me they read from right to left!!"
Source: http://www.ba-bamail.com/content.aspx?emailid=16968
Daniel Doan*Paula Le*Kimmy Nguyen
