What Québec Wants™

Accents and apostrophes

Should anyone care whether food retailer Metro has an acute accent in its name?

Yves Michaud, a well-known activist shareholder in Québec, clearly does. He filed a complaint with the Office québécois de la langue française and was quite vocal at Metro’s annual shareholder meeting held earlier this week.

Metro’s management isn’t budging. It argues that “Metro” (without an accent) has always been its trademark and is neither French nor English. From a strict legal standpoint, Metro is right and l’Office is likely to agree.

What might be surprising to some is not only the media coverage this is generating but also the views expressed in editorials by leading, pro-business publications.

Les Affaires’ François Pouliot asks “What would be the harm in giving Metro a true French name?” He argues that the retailer is a success story and a symbol of Québec Inc. After all, this wouldn’t have to be done overnight but gradually as new signs are installed so that they are “better adapted to Québec’s linguistic landscape” [The translations are mine.] Click here for the full article.

La Presse’s Vincent Brousseau-Pouliot writes that it’s difficult to understand Metro’s position on this. He suggests that Metro could keep its legal name for financial documents and for its operations in Ontario but gradually change its store signs in Québec. Click here for the full article.

Signs are expensive but the two Pouliots seem to forget that there’s far more to having two separate brand visual identities - just ask the folks at Staples/Bureau en Gros, Mark’s/L’Équipeur, Home Outfitters/Déco-Découverte, to name just a few.

Fueling this debate over accents is Quebecor’s recent public musing about adding an acute accent to its name in Québec. The media conglomerate is apparently studying the matter and will likely recommend the change to its board and shareholders.

Apostrophes

Retailers and foodservice operators entering Québec rarely have acute accent issues but they must sometimes deal with having an apostrophe in their name. Tim Horton’s dropped the apostrophe to become Tim Hortons when it entered the Québec market. Few in the rest of Canada seemed to care about the hockey player’s name new spelling. Just as few in Québec seem to care that Restaurant McDonald’s kept the apostrophe in its name.

On the Run

Don’t get me wrong. Language issues matter a great deal in Québec when branding decisions get media attention.

ExxonMobil brands its convenience stores On the Run, unstranslated, around the world, except in Québec, where opposition from the population, despite government sanction, forced Exxon’s local subsidiary to retain the French name Marché Express.

Marketing

Les Affaires’ François Pouliot claims that adding an accent to Métro would be “un bon coup de marketing” (a good marketing move).

It would be if Metro’s customers cared. Judging by the nature of readers’ comments in La Presse, it’s not clear that a majority does. Some rightly point out that even Paris’ Metro is spelled without an accent.
Even if many did care, one would have to assess the cost-benefit of implementing the name change on many more assets than simply exterior store signs? Would the brand equity gradually erode? Or worse, would customers start boycotting Metro without an accent?

I doubt it.

This is a public affairs issue at this point and it should be handled as such. How it’s handled will determine whether it becomes a marketing issue.

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Here are some cases that have attracted the interest of the language watchdog or people seeking to protect the French language:

• 1996: A woman warns the owner of a Quebec pet store she might get in touch with language authorities because Peekaboo, the parrot she wanted to buy, didn't speak French.
• 1999: The Old Navy chain is asked to rename its stores "La Vieille Rivière." It never happens.
• 2000: The owner of an Indian restaurant is told he's breaking the law by having coasters for "Double Diamond," a British beer.
• 2001: Some people express disappointment that race-car driver Jacques Villeneuve calls his restaurant "Newtown."
• 2005: Language authorities say they will investigate complaints that Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay's party used the word "Go" on its campaign posters and pamphlets, as in "Go Montreal."
• 2007: Imperial Oil says it will keep its Quebec-only "Marché Express" name for its Esso gas stations after protests against a proposal to change the name to "On the Run," as the stations are known elsewhere in North America.
• 2007: Language activists decry that callers to many Quebec government offices are told to "press nine" for English before instructions are delivered in French. Some of the departments have since changed the message to put English at the end.

[Source: CBC]

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Related posts on What Québec Wants

Metro brings Québec’s love of food to Ontario

Sign language

Localisation

I came across this fantastic Greek-style yogurt from President’s Choice.

It’s a ‘Must try!’ product according to a flash on its packaging. If you use machine translation to find a French equivalent – say Google translate – you will get ‘Faut essayer’. It’s literal but it just doesn’t sound right. Sadly, we see this sort of meaningless literal translation on packaging quite often. For example, a handwash branded Level has a bilingual label describing the product in French as ‘la main se lave’ meaning ‘the hand washes itself’.

It’s clear from the French version of this yogurt that PC insists on more than translation for its labeling as ‘must try!’ becomes ‘coup de cœur!’ in French. (Notice the proper ligature of o and e.]

A 'coup de cœur' is when you fall instantly in love with something.  You are shopping and impulsively buy a new skirt that you just have to have - you could say that it is a 'coup de cœur'. The idiom is well understood by French consumers and, more importantly, will send a clear signal that the brand is making attempts to connect locally. It becomes even more important as many brands now seek to engage in meaningful conversations with consumers particularly via social networks.

We call this adaptation.

The language industry calls this localisation.

Language localisation is not merely a translation activity, because it involves a comprehensive study of the target culture in order to correctly adapt the product to local needs. (Wikipedia)

This definition of localisation suggests that it requires a comprehensive study of the target culture. It’s true. However, it seems that even machine translation is catching up - but isn't quite there. Ask Google translate for an English equivalent to ‘coup de cœur’ and you’ll get ‘favorite’ (or is it ‘favourite’?)

I guess machines don’t yet ensure true localisation (or is it ‘localization’?). And what should it be: yogurt, yoghurt or yogourt? Ok, you get the point (vous obtenez le point).

"Canada a sort of horizontal Chile"

The Vancouver Olympics are prompting many in the blogosphere to write about Canada. This post is from Agua Marketing, a multicultural marketing based in Houston. It describes Canada as a sort of horizontal Chile. And it talks about bilingualism in commerce. Here's an excerpt:

While in Canada the French language is an increased cost for marketers; Spanish is a source of incremental revenue in the US.  Brands make money when they include Español in their marketing efforts.

Perhaps the folks at Agua Marketing should visit the horizontal Chile to find out more about how brands in Canada also make money in French.

 

Headspace Markéting

It's an odd way to spell 'marketing' in French. The word still looks and sound English but it's now an acceptable way to use the word in French.

Roughly 2,000 words have undergone spelling modernization across the French-speaking world by eliminating some hyphens, accents and medieval spellings.  

According to today's Globe and Mail, "under the changes, igloo can now be spelled iglou, fjord may be fiord, maître loses its accent to become maitre and the status quo is no longer that: it's the statuquo. The changes, which have been eliciting passions since they were introduced in France two decades ago, had been largely ignored in Quebec – until now. This fall, the Quebec Education Ministry announced that both the old and new spellings were acceptable for students writing their province-wide exams this academic year."

As for our firm's name, we'll stick to the English version of 'marketing' for now. But I have to admit that 'markayting' has a certain je ne sais quoi.

You can find the full list of recommended changes via this link.

Francophones and Anglophones in Quebec

Not so different after all, according to a new study.

The study authors also say there are three distinct personality/culture areas in North America: Quebec; the U.S. South; the rest of Canada and the U.S. combined.

When I present our firm’s analysis of the differences between consumers in Quebec and in the rest of Canada I’m often asked “what about the differences between English and French consumers in Quebec?"

My answer has always been that there are actually more similarities between the two groups in terms of consumption patterns than differences. In other words, the spending patterns and product/service preferences of English-speaking Quebeckers are often closer to those of French-speaking Quebeckers than to those of Anglophones living in the rest of Canada.

Now a new study published in the U.S. Journal of Social Psychology offers further evidence or, at least, an explanation.

The study report’s conclusions:

Our primary finding was that Francophones and Anglophones did not differ on most of the personality traits on which they were compared. This is consistent with the geographical or proximity model that states that people who live close together will have similar personality profiles, perhaps as a consequence of living in the same physical environment or of being exposed to common features of their cultures. However, Francophones scored higher than did Anglophones on psychoticism, which accords with previous research showing that people from France generally score higher on psychoticism than do people from English-speaking countries. Although this implies support for the biologically based trait model that relates personality to culture, we contend that the reason for the difference between Francophones and Anglophones on psychoticism was not clear and may also have a cultural basis. In addition, Francophones scored higher than did Anglophones on one measure of extraversion, but this result was not replicated on the second measure or in the multiple regression analysis. Future researchers should reexamine this comparison. Finally, Anglophones scored higher than did Francophones on conservatism, which is consistent with previous research and is most likely a cultural product.

Source: Personality and culture: a comparison of Francophones and Anglophones in Quebec. Date: 4/1/2008; Publication: The Journal of Social Psychology; Author: Gibson, Kerri L.;McKelvie, Stuart J.;de Man, Anton F.

Predictably, the media in Quebec picked up on these findings. Here’s an excerpt from an article published in Montreal’s The Gazette on July 12:

So it was a remarkable pleasure to learn, this week, that the linguistic, cultural and social divergences that seem to flare up so often are, according to academic researchers, basically insignificant. A new study has found that there are very few important differences in attitudes between francophones and anglophones in Quebec. Anglos here are far more like francophones than we are like anglophones in the rest of Canada or in the United States.

Writing in the U.S. Journal of Social Psychology, researchers from Bishop's University conclude that Quebecers, no matter what their mother tongue, show comparable open mindedness and emotional stability and are equally productive on the job, careful, attentive and agreeable.

A couple of stereotypes do remain true to some degree, the psychologists said of their sample of 50 francophones and 50 anglophones: anglophones are slightly more conservative.

But centuries of living together have not only made us similar, but have also given us something of a distinct personality. That's a real "us," all of us, francophone and anglophone alike.

For the full article:

http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/editorial/story.html?id=944871c7-aa9d-4a38-b870-23235ad3ccec

While this was not the focus of their investigation, the study authors say there are three distinct personality/culture areas in North America: Quebec; the U.S. South; the rest of Canada and the U.S. combined.

For more on that, read Joel Garreau’s Nine Nations of North America.