Dear readers,
I grow up speaking a specific Arabic dialect native to my country, Morocco. The dialect spoken here is very different from other Arab countries. The difference goes to the point of no Middle Eastern countries being able to understand us. However, we were always able to understand them and adapt our conversing encounters to them. One may ask how did we acquire this skill? In Morocco, students have the obligation to be enrolled in classical Arabic classes. Moreover, the shared culture between the Arab world lets us enjoy the same movies, TV shows, values and music. The difference between the two types of Arabic is comparable to French and Latin.
In the first week of my internship, I oversaw the launch of a new line in multiple countries. This was a body groomer that was meant to launch in Europe, Japan, Middle Eastern countries, and Latin America. I needed to ensure that all the details are correct from product specifications to market legal logos and translations. Since Philips is a large multinational, we dealt with multiple assets in different languages that not every team member could understand. I mean the probability of finding someone who speaks Greek, Spanish, Italian Portuguese, English and French is a bit tight. One of the packs I was launching in the Middle East had Arabic writing. The amount of simple language mistakes there choked me at first. I did everything in my power to correct them.
To begin with I made sure what mistakes were there. Then I let my boss know about it. Then contact the integral project lead to let them know about the modifications that are necessary. Next, I let the Middle Eastern market know and had multiple emails exchanged. Finally, we had a meeting with the translator, and he confirmed that we needed to modify the translations. After numerous rounds of approval, we finally finalised the final packaging and corrected all other materials such as leaflets and marketing texts on numerous websites.
This great assignment did not just show me that being proactive is important, it showed me that communication skills and quick thinking are key in the marketing field. Although this was an effort to salvage a risky situation by providing wrong information on the pack, this task has been the best I had in 12 months as a consumer marketing manager intern. It did not only teach me that I am able to go the long way and solve something critical to the success of a project, but it also showed me that from all the 5 languages I speak, classical Arabic was not insignificant. Including in my work, I was able to network with numerous Arab native speakers because of it. Sadly, we grew up thinking that we need to solely delve into western languages and make the least effort in Arabic. Now, when I actually came to a western country, made friends with different background and had my first internship experience I realise how lucky I am to be able to understand one of the most spoken languages in the world.
Best regards,
Marwa Nour Mouline.
Leave a Reply