Bilingual Branding
I was watching AXN’s Super CSI Sunday (Yes I am a CSI fan, who isn’t?) last night and there ran an ad of the newly branded Turbo Jet, a service provider that takes you from Hong Kong to Macau on board high speed ferries.
What I immediately noticed with their logo and also with some other emerging Chinese Brands is that their logos have both English alphabet and Chinese characters in their names.
Here is another familiar one: 
Makes sense don’t you think? If your brand needs to appeal to the local Chinese domestic market filled with the neuvo rich, and also include the rest of the English speaking world, would you not do the same?
Now I wonder if western companies will localize their brand marques to include Chinese text as well? If not, should they follow the local brands? Or having to many letters just tacky in logo design?
Billigfl
July 9, 2008 at 10:27 pmThis boat looks so great! But jetboats aren
DT
July 1, 2008 at 12:24 pmHi KK,
Thanks for stopping by and nice to hear from you.
That is a great link. I believe this Bilingual Branding is something that Asian brands can use as a distinctly Asian flavor in their marketing and advertising campaigns. What a great way to differentiate from the the western brands in western consumer markets!
KK
July 1, 2008 at 9:22 amAnother interesting example of bilingual logos is the Sendai Astronomical Observatory in Japan.
http://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/this_way_to_the_cosmos.php
As pointed out in that article, it is refreshing to see how each of the two languages come together to play an integral part of the logo-mark itself, rather than one language being the subservient translation of the other, tethering on almost as an afterthought (as most bilingual marks are).