ABSTRACT
The story goes like this-a young man got his break in the world of advertising for a beverage company and was given an assignment in the Middle East. His campaign flopped. Seeinghowdejectedhewas, his best friend askedhim, ‘‘Why weren’t you successful with the soft drink ad campaign?’’ He replied-‘‘I was confident that I could make a clever sales pitch in the rural areas even though I can’t speakArabic. So I designed the campaignwithout any script-therewould be three pictures within the ad. The first showed a man lying in the desert sand, dying of thirst. Then, the man drinks our beverage. After being revived he jumps up and runs on his way, totally refreshed.’’ ‘‘Brilliant,’’ cried his friend. ‘‘Not really,’’ sighed the young man. ‘‘I didn’t realize that in Arabic you read from right to left.’’ In reality, situations like this happen in the business world all of the time (see Figure 5.1). We think we know what to do and how to say things, but often we realize that we have missed the point!
