The connection between time language and branding

I saw an Instagram post about time being interpreted differently in different languages. It was fascinating to know that in Mandarin, time is vertical concept when used in grammar (last month translated in Mandarin would roughly be Upper Month). 

That small detail opened up a bigger idea: Time isn't perceived the same way across all cultures and from a linguistic point of view, cultures represent time as they experience it. 

So for some, it is cyclical (as based on phases of sun, moon, seasons - almost agrarian). But also as a concept of time repeating itself from a philosophic sense too.

For others, it is horizontal (past, present and future are in a spectrum).

And for some cultures - time is vertical.

Interestingly - there's a language for whom time as a concept is absolutely different. They view the past as forward (known) and the future as behind (unknown). They see things as materializing or materialized. 

That's not all - if language has this kind of impact - where it represents what one experiences. What happens to campaigns that need to translate their taglines to different cultures?

And this was another amazing discovery. For starters - there seems to be a stronger pull for individualist taglines in the US and Europe whereas it's more collective in India and SE Asian countries. So lines like Just Do It, You're worth it are more western concepts whereas "we are in this together' we are family etc are more SE Asian skewed lines. 

What's more - when Nike works on it's Just Do It campaign in China - the line is never translated as this individualistic view of self isn't culturally prevalent. In fact, it becomes more like 'we believe you can'. Or something to those lines.

It's something that I came to know upon further reading, the linguist Whorf had noticed. That language was a way that cultures expressed their experiences and they aren't just words. He infamously noticed how some people were caught smoking outside a danger sign where barrels of ´empty' propane gas was kept. To these people, empty meant nothing inside.

What this made me realize is that language is inseparable from culture. 

When we work on campaigns, especially in India where languages, cultures and therefore worldviews too change every 150 kms, translation alone would not suffice. The challenge therefore isn’t how to translate a word or a line but how to translate the experience of what is being said. 

Brands that understand this don’t sound local, they are culturally fluid. It’s a rarity in the advertising world but these brands stand out. And in a world that is increasingly global and deeply plural, that fluency may be the real competitive advantage. 

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