The central theme of this issue of The Media focuses on a language. Isn’t it strange how a language has become a political football in this country? And even weirder is the fact that no-one addresses the issue directly. Rather we flank it, talk round it, avoid it, or even ignore it!
I’ve sold the Afrikaans market in countless presentations and articles historically, and don’t think it all worth repeating again. Rather, maybe just let the facts speak for themselves for a change. And here they are:
- Afrikaans is certainly not the language of the platteland. Thirty-eight percent of Afrikaans speakers live in the Western Cape and 23 percent in Gauteng.
- Not surprising is that 51 percent of Whites are Afrikaans speakers, 46 percent of Coloured folk – but three percent of Black people (148,000) claim it as their home language!
- Then Afrikaans is either the most spoken, or the second most spoken language in six out of our nine provinces! And bear in mind no other language occupies the top two position in more than three provinces. So not only is it indeed the third most spoken language – unlike any of the other 10 official tongues, it really has wide national appeal.
- There are 11,7 million reasons why Afrikaans is officially alive and well! Almost 40 percent of our population can speak and understand Afrikaans – 24 percent of the Black population, 26 percent of Indians, 92 percent of Coloureds, and 87 percent of While folk.
- And get this in context – Afrikaans – remember 11,7 million speakers – is a MAJOR language in Africa. There are over 1,000 (!) languages spoken on this continent, and 95 percent of them are in fact spoken by less than one million people. So it actually falls into the five percent of African languages spoken by more than one million people – 11 times over!
- And it is a global language, with an estimated 30 million people globally who understand the language. It is indeed offered as a university subject in The Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, and then less predictably in the USA, Poland, and Russia.
- Then there is the old fable that we have to lay to rest again and again. Marketers and media people who say that seeing most Afrikaans people can be reached via English media, there is really no actual reason to include Afrikaans media in the communication mix. Now the SABC proved this a decade or so ago to be a ridiculous and spurious argument. Then in Canada in 1997 a study was conducted where French Canadians were exposed to ads created specifically in French and also to ads that were adapted/translated from the English. Guess what? Those produced as original creation were on average rated 37 percent more effective than the adaptations/translations. They were seen to be miles more interesting (77 percent to 17 percent), a heck of a lot more attention grabbing (87 percent to 27 percent), stunningly more believable (68 percent to 14 percent) and a helluva lot more convincing (64 percent compared to 12 percent). Case proven? Book shut!
- Lastly, a softer, but perhaps most relevant argument. We know product parity is perhaps the hardest factor for today’s marketer to overcome. To meaningfully differentiate product “A” from product “B”. And increasingly this is done on an extrinsic not intrinsic basis. The objective is more often than not to appeal to the consumer increasingly on an emotional rather than rational basis. To get them to bond with your product.
- If this is so, language is a crucial issue in the communication. It is not only the medium in which we read, write and speak, but it is also the medium in which we express our feelings and experiences. It is the medium in which we THINK. And isn’t that now dealing with the innermost psyche of the consumer?
Totsiens, en dankie!
Harry Herber is Group Managing Director – The MediaShop Group.