This may well be the self-promo of the year. It certainly has scale to commend it. Creative translation agency, franklyfluent, is making a point about the importance of creativity and craft when it comes to brand translation, on billboards across the UK. The billboards sport deliberately bad rewrites of iconic brand slogans from Nike, Kellogg’s, B&Q, KFC, KitKat and Maybelline. All with the same sentiment, but minus the magic and sparkle of the original brand line.  

The gutsy guerrilla outdoor (and digital) campaign, Hard to Make, Easy to Break, is a celebration of great brand writing, spotlighting the skill it takes to create a timeless, resonant and memorable slogan.

To make its point even more strongly, franklyfluent has created a website, https://greatbrandlines.co/, featuring the “broken” slogans, and revealing the untold stories behind the original lines, with a QR code to lead the curious to it.

Catherine Barr, co-Founder, franklyfluent, stated, “More than ever brands need to cross borders. But translating creative copy is about more than getting the meaning right. It’s about capturing the texture and tone of the work in a way that resonates with local audiences. Get it wrong, and you end up with copy like the ‘broken’ slogans at the centre of our campaign – that says what you meant to say, but not how you meant to say it. It’s something we wanted to bring to life for everyone, whether or not they speak another language.”

Credits
Agency: franklyfluent
Creative: Genevieve Edwards
Website: Tomorrow Happens
Artwork: Hsin-Jung Lu
Photography: Kim Dung Duong