Andres Wittermann on international media relations trends

Why Linguists Are Needed In Marketing

It seems there is a new victim of Names You Should Have Checked In Every Language Before You Use Them For Your Latest Product.

The German netzeitung writes that Microsoft's iPod challenger - the Zune - shares its name with the male sexual organ. At least in the French-speaking part of Canada, Quebec. It actually seems that in Quebecois it is called Zounzoun or Bizoune. There are also comments on the web that there is a Hebrew word for f******, which phonetically comes dangerously close to sounding like Zune.

Here is the challenge: Can you remember this happening before? If I remember correctly a former client was a d*** in some language. So Microsoft is not alone in this, but you certainly would have thought this does not happen anymore.

German humour

You thought Germans are not funny? Then look at this latest post on Indiskretion Ehrensache, one of my favourite blogs. The headline reads "Why so many English marriages are failing" :-)

Another (admittedly not created by Germans, but kinda German...) great website, which I found through Rocketboom is this site of Hitler-lookalike cats. Enjoy and think of other lookalike animals you could start websites about.

It is so great to have a job, where it is part of what you are doing to find all this.

Diamonds Are Not A Girl's Best Friend

I just read on SPIEGEL ONLINE that a US market research by Oxygen TV has found that 77% of all women would prefer a plasma TV instead of a diamond necklace. That is obviously good news as with the prices for plasma TVs having fallen dramatically recently, it is now much cheaper to make your partner happy.

And it also coincides with my own wishes - so darling, what about a PS3 for Christmas?

Coffee-machine Vs. Champagne - Starting Your PR Career Is Not Always Easy

The German University of Münster has held a conference discussing the options for students who want to move into PR. SPIEGEL ONLINE reports that today most German students who want to work in the PR industry have to accept traineeships taking up to over a year - and are getting paid a maximum of Euro 2k per month. Read the article here - also see a picture showing my friend and colleague, Rafael Rahn, who took part in the panel discussion.

The "Generation Praktikum" (describing the phenomenon that most people leaving university are starting their professional careers as interns - without long-term contracts but with low salaries) is all over the German papers (this week also on the cover of SPIEGEL's hard copy version). I also remember Thomas Knüwer's blog, which some days ago had a nice little story on how interns are being (ab-)used in PR agencies.

The funny thing is that these interns are often being presented to the agencies' customers as experienced and competent (and highly motivated) PR consultants. If the customers just knew the reality.

There is nothing wrong about internships. You should do them while you still are at university. Afterwards you should try to find a place where people take you seriously and where they value what you have to offer. I can obviously only speak for myself, but starters at my agency have always been paid above the average and only had to endure the legal six-months probation period - and therefore have always been highly motivated. Customers benefit from this just as much as we do as the agency employing them.

I would love to call for a code of conduct where the PR industry agreed on standards to drive professional development of their staff. But in a world where everything has to be cheap, this seems to be an empty hope.

Who Will Win The "Next DVD" War?

These days it really hurts to write about a war - where in fact it's just a competition around the future of our digital living room entertainment.

In marketing terms it certainly will be a war though. The world is waiting for the answer to the question "Who is going to win the war for the next-generation DVD?"

Europe still has to wait a bit, but in the US the BluRay DVD (lead by Sony) already is fighting for market share against the HD-DVD (Toshiba, Microsoft and others). And the times seem to be over when Sony was always the winner. Sueddeutsche.de has tested the two systems in a Swiss studio and says that the HD-DVD looks like a winner - an all three important categories (availability, pricing, quality).

Anybody has an opinion on this already? And what could Sony do to catch up? My view is that if there a several more reports like this in the media it will be very difficult for Sony to win this time. And we may see the final decline of a formerly big CE name.