and this over here is our arabic copy writer...

I met up with a friend of mine yesterday…this friend of mine happens to be the rarest of gems in our industry. Truly a precious stone not to be found strolling around the putrid lakes of media city.
This friend of mine is truly one of a kind because...he reads and writes Arabic perfectly. And…..wait for it…..wait for it…..here comes the best part….he’s a ‘conceptualiser’ as well! Cub scouts promise, I’m not lying.

Now how many agency’s can boast one of ‘em?
Yes we all do have those Arabic translators that are occasionally honoured with an invitation to a brainstorming session because they “know the culture”…However upon the end of this field day they then resume their droning existence as the cog in the agencys arabizing machine.

So the question is why do agency management insist on hiring translators over Arabic coneptualisers?
My humble guess is the following: 1 To start with, conceptualisers are indeed a rare gem…so coming by one is almost impossible.2 Insecure Creative directors that can’t speak a fu*king word of Arabic prefer it that way. 3 Agency’s would rather spend their buck on the tangibility of hard translated brochure copy instead of the intangibility of “Arabic Ideas”.

Not sure if that made sense

Though rational from a business perspective, I wonder how effective a creative, eloquent and charismatic English salesman would be if he had a translator by his side every time he knocked on someone’s door.

If most of us can’t speak a damn word of Arabic, do we really know how effective our campaigns are before we send out for colour seps?

Cue the chair spinning t*ser that insists that all ideas are universal “whot about Cog, nowone thaid a word in dat ad and it won a lion!Whot do you thay about dat!”