Saturday, June 2, 2018

Omo - dirt is good (now Arabized)

The lovely campaign of Omo "dirt is good" is now Arabized. How can one turn such a sexy, sweet, lovely selling line which advocates children getting dirty for the sake of their experience-gathering, fun and empowerment? The result is "let them get dirty so as for them to learn". I do feel for the copywriter who had that job. The original slogan is great but almost non-translatable across languages. All words for "dirt" in Arabic are almost non-usable and props to Omo for even finding a fun-setting for the word in English! But to go back to the Arabic - I respect the effort, and as a copywriter still do not know how to make it different. My own take? "El be2a3 7a22 3elem" (the word "7a22 3elem" is used in Arabic as "a price to learn" and be2a3 means "spots" (presumably of dirt)). So there, here's my 2 cents.