I have noticed that both the German language and German advertising has something about pigs. A recent high-profile advertising campaign for Media Markt (a major electronics retailer chain) used piglets as an eye-catcher, power companies have done it too. “Having pig”, as the Germans would say, means to enjoy good fortune. Marzipan piglets around Christmas are popular, meaning something like “I wish you luck”. I have shown the image below to Germans in presentations and they told me to them it means “lucky”.

To me as an English man, this is bizarre. Pigs are dirty farm animals. It’s not the first time I’ve met strange pictures or cultural references and noticed stark contrasts to British thinking. I meet it a lot in my work on advertising. Companies like to think they can transfer advertising ideas to other countries like-for-like. More often than not, they can’t. And a word of advice to any company engaged in international advertising: be extremely careful with visuals (the images used in ads).

Here’s an example. A German car maker decided to push its new range of vans in the UK. The ads were prepared and the local agency working on adapting the ads to the UK market nearly had a fit when they saw the visual. I have no copy of it, but let’s imagine it was this:

Harmless? No! In England there is a major problem with road rage (like “Verkehrsrowdys” in Germany). “White van drivers” have an terrible reputation. To a Brit this would be like using an image like this:

Just as well the car company used an advertising agency that understood the UK culture.

Returning to lucky German pigs then – what would be a suitable image to use in an international campaign? Well, having thought this one over for campaigns on client work, it would have to be something along the following lines.

or

But to be really sure, ask a local in every country.

For more on this issue, Hofstede helps. And here: Nivea being rude(not).