Planning an Advertising Campaign in Multiple Languages
I drive down Wells Avenue in Reno nearly every day headed to and from meetings. It’s not uncommon for me to see a billboard or two that are in Spanish, since there seems to be quite a few Hispanic businesses in the area. But lately, there’s been one billboard that has been disturbing me. It’s a billboard sponsored by the Ad Council that is creating awareness about lupus. I’ll first say that I think that this cause is just, I support it completely, and I hope that the campaign increases awareness. It’s the execution of part of the advertising campaign that makes me think they’ve missed an opportunity. Here is the billboard, maybe something stands out to you, too:
Lupus Billboard - Spanish
The thing that gets me is that the entire message is in Spanish, but the URL is not (it’s in English). For this campaign, the tagline, “Could I have Lupus?” also serves as the URL (couldihavelupus.gov). But, in Spanish, the phrase is “¿Podría tener Lupus?” So, why not have the URL in Spanish, as well, to make it easier to remember for Spanish-speaking people? I checked – podriatenerlupus.gov was available (at the time of this posting). In fact (and I completely applaud this), there is a Spanish version of the Web site. So, why isn’t one of the portals to this site podriatenerlupus.gov?
Now, I’m not fluent in Spanish by any means. I took a couple years of Spanish in college, but I’ve since forgotten a large part of the language. I’m willing to admit that there may be some cultural or lingual reason for not presenting this URL in Spanish, but I’m not seeing it. I think it’s important that if you’re using your tagline as your URL (to help people remember it), and you do the same campaign in Spanish, that you should provide a unique URL for your Spanish-speaking audience.
Again, I am so glad the Ad Council has helped to get this important message out, but I think it could have been enhanced for their Spanish-speaking audience with a URL that wasn’t in English. Your thoughts?
For your reference, here is an English version of the billboard:
Lupus Billboard - English
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