Language(s) in branding and advertising

Welcome, you're listening to Words and Actions, a podcast about how language matters in business, politics and beyond. Hello everyone, welcome to the third episode of Words and Actions, a podcast that focuses on the use and the importance of language in business and politics. And with this podcast, we want to raise your awareness about and fuel your interesting different aspects of language and how they are used to shape our perceptions of reality. We do so by sharing a number of insights from academic research, combined with our own perceptions of what we see around us and an interview with an expert on the topic at hand. We also provide extra information on the Words and Actions blog and you can find us on Twitter and share your comments on the website. If I can add that this moment that we would like to thank very much for our listeners who already got in touch and reviewed and commented on our podcast. If you have comments or thoughts, please keep them coming. We love reading you. And also give us a review or a rating if you want to. We heard Erika Darych, a Veronica Coller and I am Bernard, the cleft. So here we are again. And today's topic for the podcast is branding. Now we're all surrounded by brands and if I were to ask you the audience to list the number of brands, I think you can easily come up with a fair number of them. But the question is how are brands created and how is language used to shape the characteristics and the mental image that we have of these brands? That's what we'll do in today's podcast. We'll answer some of the questions by looking at different aspects of language in branding, going from the lowest level of sounds and sound symbolism to words and metaphors. And also we'll also talk about the brand tone of voice and multilingual advertising. So as I said, we have three hosts of Veronica Coller Erika Darych and me, but we also have a central guest professor Helen Kelly Holmes from the University of Limerick and we'll interview her later on. Veronica and Erica have just asked the audience, you know, to think of a couple of brands, but I might ask you the same question. So what brands come to mind when I ask you this particular question? Samsung because I'm looking at my computer and it's Samsung. And my phone as well and that's Samsung too. The brand that comes to my mind is not one that I'm looking at right now, but one that has been in the news recently about a big rebranding effort, staples. And I just thought it was a really, really good example to show just how much brands matter because clearly staples invested a lot of money and effort into that rebranding campaign and rebranding the logo. Whether it was successful, I don't know, I leave it to you and the audience to check out the new logo and see what they think. Yeah, we'll put both on the website, the old logo and the new logo. So staples is a brand that does sort of stationary office supplies, that sort of thing and both the old and the new brand play on that, but perhaps you're like one or the other better. Let us know. When we talk about brands, of course, we're not thinking of the product itself only, we also associate that with, you know, values and emotions. And sometimes a people can be brands as well, which leads me to a kind of tricky question, perhaps Veronica and Erica again. And also do you think about this? Who is Sweden's biggest Hollywood star? In Great Backman. The answer is no. Shame, she was a very good actress. Who is it? The answer is, and well, I was referring to people, but in this particular case, it's not a person. It's a car and it's a Volvo. And why is that? Well, when you start paying attention to Volvo cars in American films, mainly Hollywood films, they are kind of used to underscore the characteristics. And this is not me saying this, this is film freaks reporting on this online. So they underscore the characteristics of the drivers. And in many cases, what you could see are very reliable man and women, you know, who want to protect their families from invading, let's say, aliens or whatever. Or inquisitive journalists looking for justice or university professor as the unconventional hero and who couldn't care less about cars probably. But basically, this is what you can see. So the values, the attitudes, the emotions, the brand triggers, they are projected onto domain characters and perhaps even vice versa. This is what Volvo does as a brand. Surely it's not safer than any of the other brands because, you know, we have these standard tests that cars have to comply with. But of course, it's their USB or they use it as their USB. So reliability, safety, hence also the slogan Volvo for life. So what you're saying, basically, is that film directors use car brands strategically in order to characterize the characters in the film through the cars. Is that what you're saying? Exactly. Alright, okay, got it. Kind of very clever product placement, if you like, which underscores the features of the hero. Yeah, it's product placement, but it's also a form of characterization in film. That's interesting, really. And it just shows how much sometimes unconscious associations we have with brands, really, because brands are obviously not just products. We can see like my phone or my computer. What have you? But on a different level, it's a bundle of associations, really, isn't it? It's what values we associate like reliability or safety or what metaphorical personality or what expectations we have. And of course, that's not only because we interact with the brand. It's also because we're all exposed to branding, you know, how people use language and visuals to create these associations we have with the brands. Absolutely. And it works in various subtle ways. And yeah, we might not be aware of them. And perhaps it's not a bad idea to start small and have a look at the impact of sounds, for instance, and the notion of sound symbolism. So for instance, if I were to change the O sound in Volvo into I like Vilvi. That sounds like a watch. That sounds like a watching powder or a detergent or something like that. It sounds like, yeah, it sounds like some product even. If it were a car, you know, I wouldn't find it as sturdy or as safe anymore. I think it would be a very small car. It will be. It's a small car, don't you? That's absolutely not a family car. You know, the qualities of various sounds really can evoke things like size, for example. There are lots of studies that study exactly this. In language related studies, this is called sound symbolism in marketing. You will find this under cross-modal correspondence. Yeah, there's this really old example, isn't there? You know, where you have something like Bobo and Kiki or what is the other one called Maluma? Maluma in Takeda, that's it. Yes. Yes. Well, the Maluma Takeda experiment or the Koi, the Maluma Takeda effect, goes back all the way to the 1930s and really it was a way of looking at how sounds and words can evoke sensations. And if I asked you and the audience to try and match two shapes to the words Maluma in Takeda, one shape being a curvy, soft kind of shape and the other one is a spiky, angular shape, it's quite likely that everybody would go for the spiky being called Takeda and curvy being Maluma. This matching of the perceptions of sensations and perceptions with sounds is really well utilized in marketing and branding. They did an experiment where they asked people to match Maluma and Takeda with chocolate with different cocoa content. And people went for Takeda if the chocolate was bitter and had a higher cocoa content. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Something's in aesthetic almost, isn't it, where you sort of, you know, a few senses together, like the taste with the sound. That's really interesting. It is interesting and it's also, you know, it is worth a lot of money, too. Quite. Yes. So, for example, in another study, people looked at correlation between perception of luxury and brand names, and they found really interesting patterns regarding the sounds themselves. So, I am going to test you now. I'm going to use some of the made up names that they used in the experiment. And maybe you can tell me Veronica Bernad, which one you think would describe a luxurious brand rather than an everyday brand? Clint or Cruiser? Okay. I'm going for Cruiser. It sounds a bit more sophisticated. Don't ask me why, but that's my guess. Yeah. I would say so. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would agree with that. Okay. Here is one for you, Veronica. Vecinia or Vipty? Vecinia, because it sounds sort of, I mean, I know it's not a real name, but it sounds kind of Italian. Really? So, it sounds a bit more, I don't know. Yeah. Again, sophisticated, perhaps, yeah, something you would pay more for. I'm guessing, you know, if it were a brand designer furniture, things like that. Is that just Vecinia you're sitting in something like that? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Design a furniture, not, yeah. Okay. How about the last one? Van B or Uvoni? I would go for Uvoni again, because to me, it sounds Italian once more. Uvoni could be, could be food, could it, could be a wine brand, maybe? Very, very, very expensive ice cream. Or very expensive ice cream, yes. Yes. Indeed. Yeah. You can have an Uvoni brand once to put on me, something like that. Yes. Well, well done. You're, you picked all the three names that were categorized as luxurious in the study. And it's because it partly has to do with the sounds which are in these words. So in their study, they found that luxury brand names show how your tendency to have back and low vowels like U or R or more syllables or the stresses on different syllables. would expect in English. So the final conclusion from in the study was that names which evoke forriness imbue a brand with an heir of exclusivity. Yeah, but it's certain kinds of foreigners, you know, like we had Vesinia, was it? Yeah, so that sounds Italian or when you just talk about stress and you have things like I don't know Fanele, you know, so that is French. So I think different kinds of foreigners, perhaps of different associations, but that is something that would definitely come back with when we do the interview. So now we've been talking about, you know, sounds so far, but if we take it one step further, we can also start to think about the impact of words. And there are a couple of very obvious examples of companies coming up with a word for a product which actually has a different meaning in another language and just briefly referring to the Fort Pinto, which wasn't the great success in Brazil because in Brazilian Portuguese slang, it's associated with the work that threatens, you know, the masculinity of the male drivers. So they didn't sell very well there. So that's one aspect we have to be careful with on a word level. But another one I'd like to share with you is the rebranding efforts or attempts by Karlsberg. Now what happened is, you know, that they have this very famous slogan, right? Probably the best beer in the world. Now what they were trying to do, they were targeting Russia and Asian markets as well. And their perception was that this probably would be associated with weakness. So over there, the perception is either you have the best beer in the world or you don't. So they started rebranding Karlsberg and they had this new slogan, which was, I'm not mistaken, this calls for a Karlsberg. So you have this alliteration there, which is nice, but it backfired because people thought, you know, what has happened to the detung in cheek slogan that you had? That was really nice, you know, a brand not taking itself too seriously. And now you've changed everything and it didn't work. And we're back to probably the best beer in the world. Which is really famous, obviously, you know, so not all rebranding actually works, you know. And in a way, there were sort of victims of their own success because they had come up with this really good slogan, which involved this probably in the self irony. And then they tried to backtrack from that. But talking of beers, it's not only individual words, it's also the language, the words are in. So we already talked about accents or something sounds foreign, but what if actual foreign languages are used? So for instance, another beer brand, Stella Artois. Sounds familiar. Yeah, it would for you. Your Belgian, it would. Yeah. So you can tell us actually where it comes from. What part of Belgium? Because that matters, obviously, in your country. Yeah, it's the HQs are in Lurven. So that's the the flammish part of Belgium. Right. And that's where their marketing campaign or branding campaign didn't work because for the UK market, they introduced French. Yeah. So they said, yeah, this is cider. And they had this French spelling off of seed. And they wanted sort of to create an aura of Frenchness with Stella Artois. And that, of course, completely backfired because it is not from the French part, it's from the flammish part. But then British people don't really have a national stereotype of the Dutch language, I suppose. You know, so that was an attempt of capitalizing on foreignness that didn't quite work. No, locally it didn't work. No, it wouldn't work for you. I'm sure it wouldn't. But it's a study that was actually conducted by our interview. So our guest today is the offer of that study on Stella Artois, Professor Helen Kelly Holmes, from Limerick University in Ireland. And she's very well known for her work on language use in advertising, multilingual advertising, also global branding, she's worked on linguistic landscapes, how is language used in public space. I won't bore our listeners with the list of her publications really, just to say, well, come, Helen, we're very delighted to have you here today. Thanks for joining us. Thank you. I'm delighted to be here as well. And I thought we'd start with a really general question, which is, how did you actually become interested in multilingual advertising? Okay, so my own background actually is in language and in advertising. So I actually studied languages and marketing. And I became more interested in the area really when I did my PhD research, which was about advertising as a new discourse in the former GDR. So I did actually work experience, kind of a six-month placement on the East-West German border. And it was just around the time that the Berlin Wall came down. What was very interesting was that West German brands just simply started advertising in the East. And the interesting thing was that they met with a lot of problems. So people didn't understand the advertising. There were references to things people didn't know about earlier texts. So it was very clearly case of intercultural advertising, although people didn't realize that at the time. And it may be very interested to see, you know, how much of culture goes into advertising. And how much is taken for granted in the advertising that we see every day. So from that I became interested. I remember that time very well. I grew up in a border city in West Germany. Ah, okay. Yeah. And I remember that 1989 very well. And the intercultural misunderstandings at the time. Although we all allegedly spoke German. I can relate to that really. Yeah, yeah. And then I guess I became interested in, at that time, the early 90s, what I noticed, I was living in the UK and in England at that point in time, that there was a lot of German being used in English language advertising. And then I noticed also a lot of French being used. And so you had examples like this Audi's slogan "Forschbundrische Technik", which to me is a very good example of what I would call linguistic fetish. And that was very fashionable at the time to throw in a bit of German into the advertising. So I was fascinated by this. Could you explain this notion of linguistic fetish a bit more? It sure has a nice ring to it. But could you exemplify that a bit as well? Yeah. So this is linked to Marx's idea of commodity fetish. So where it's actually a meaning becomes something symbolic and it moves away from something which is concrete and which is instrumental to something which is sort of contrived or symbolic. So my understanding of linguistic fetish and it comes from the idea that it's not really about trying to say something, to communicate something directly, it's about communicating something symbolically. So it's more important that the language is German and that it's understandable as German than what something like "Forschbundrische Technik" actually means. So from that point of view, it's more like an image or actually a piece of soundtrack, a piece of music that would enhance the advertising message or the brand rather than a crucial piece of information that the consumer needs to have. So it communicates a brand value really. Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. And in case of German, what would that be then? Even if people don't really understand what is being said, what are the symbolic values behind German then? Studies have shown this in country of origin studies in marketing which show this, that people want German cars. So the German language has the identity, the personality of engineering, reliable engineering, good technology. I mean, this is a very interesting case. I don't think they use it anymore. It would say that, which is a car brand. They used to use the slogan "Spanish Design German Engineering" and that kind of sums it up. So you don't want German design, you want Spanish design because we think of Spain as very stylish, Spanish language has a personality of flair, passion, but maybe we don't want that in our engine. So the Germans can do the engine. And I mean, it's very interesting, you know, if you take a brand, I always think it's interesting, Nivea. Nobody realizes that Nivea is German brand. The cream, the cosmetic, they're huge cosmetics conglomerate. They never use German in their brands because it doesn't have that personality. French has that personality, say, for instance, for cosmetics. Yeah, you get a lot in perfume and cosmetics and what have you, you know, that's right. And yeah, Volkswagen did something similar, didn't they? They have this slogan "Dass Auto". That's Auto, yeah, yeah. Basically, it just means it's a car. The car, yeah. What if you say it in German? It sounds good. So that's what I mean about your fashion. She's not actually about the meaning of the words. It's about the German language in that context kind of forward to the product. If we look at it the other way around, when you have English and foreign language, what kind of brand value would get communicated there? Yeah, so I mean, English is kind of a special case because it's a mixture between symbolic and instrumental meanings. So because English is so widely understood, particularly across Europe, its usage can have a double function in that, it can be giving practical information or information about the brand. But, you know, why do you do it in English? You do it in English to send a particular message. And I mean, people can read Elizabeth Martin. She's done some interesting work around this. And she would say English communicates the idea that a company is global, a company is modern, a company is perhaps cosmopolitan, you know. Very interesting and complex linguistic situations. So say somewhere like India or a lot of African countries where you have multiple languages and multi-lingual countries. English tends to win out as an advertising language because it's seen to be inclusive. You're not, you know, it kind of belongs to everyone. There's this kind of idea about English that you're not picking a particular brand. And I mean, I'm very interested in kind of multi-lingual provision by advertising. And in a lot of cases, you know, you can try to provide everybody's language or you might just go for English and say I'm not picking anybody because English is an international language, but of course that's not really the case Yeah, that's a mood point, but in a post-colonial context it very often functions as a lingua franca for instance Right as a language that everybody can communicate Yeah, and it kind of has this neutrality fetish I would say so it kind of has this association of neutrality Of course, it's not at all neutral, but in these situations it can be seen to be to be neutral and actually There's been very interesting studies of how websites have changed and how governments may be 10 years ago We're trying to provide lots and lots of languages on their websites for all their new micro groups and lots of them now Have just switched to English so in place like Estonia and Norway they were trying to be very inclusive and then they've just got Said Norwegian and English now they've given up on trying to provide it's a very interesting study of that by my new British Kina so they've gone for the certain idea that English is neutral. I'm not sure do you know the Dacia Duster ad where they actually use a cultural reference that is known to many people and they've taken a queen song Another one bites the dust and they can turn that into another one drives the dust But it's that's also you know knowledge is shared by many many people and which makes it in a way I think neutral in that the same time. Yeah, it's kind of interesting wordplay going on Yeah, I thought it was a nice example as well. I think and some of these things are very semi-artically packed and they're so they have a lot of meaning in them They've a lot of layers meaning they rely on consumers to do a lot of work to dissect things and to you know To understand all of this so they're relying on a kind of a and a cultured audience. I think Nick who've done would say you know So so people cultured to audience who know the knowing audience Yeah, and understand them It sort of brings me to another area. So not the use of foreign languages per se but Using foreign looking letters, you know in different alphabets So I'm thinking here of IKEA and I'm thinking of there's lots of memes on the Internet that sort of Parody IKEA Adverts and you've been even looking letters with Umbhlouds or a circle around vowels above vowels or what have you what what would you call this kind of thing that people do there? And why would Mark use it again is this idea of the language as visual really so it's the Visuality of which rather than any particular word that it's saying or meaning that the word has it's not an Instrumental meaning it's about the fact that it looks so again It's like it's really the primary function is the visual function. IKEA has done this very very successfully And it looks like Scandinavian language and of course that personality is one of great design particularly for furniture So it's a perfect association for them But the interesting thing now is of course that you know when I started to research advertising It adds were extremely precious things and you know I used to have to write to companies to get copies of ads. I used to have to Cut them out of the paper cut them out of magazines keep them safely and they were very precious things now When the ad appears it's really only the start of their life cycle and like that they get some virtue They get changed they get shares they get commented on and some of that can enhance the value of the brand But some of it can also take away from it as well. And there's no control over it anymore once it's Yeah, these days it's out there. Yeah, people are incredibly creative as well And can do very very wishy things with it companies would say that helps their brand. You know, there's no such thing as bad publicity We'll have some of these memes as examples on our blog post that goes with the grace. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, grace You were referring to a brand value and that brings me to brand personality And you have this very famous Jennifer Arkon article in 1997 Where she you know distinguishes five dimensions on the basis of which companies can actually create their own Identity or personality and these dimensions just in a nutshell includes sincerity excitement competence sophistication and Ruggedness now my question basically was could you give a number of examples of companies that use these dimension Dimensions so in which you have this kind of typical personality and how this is reflected perhaps in the language that they use I Think sincerity a very interesting example would be I would probably choose Guinness, you know, the Irish beer brand It's not something that's fleeting. It's something that has a long history It's probably quite a concern scene is quite a conservative brand quite stable brand and you know It's not going to let you down. It's something that's very reliable But of course then it becomes hard for a brand like Guinness to kind of reinvent itself and reach new audiences and things like that So you have to kind of do something different then you have to kind of change your product. So it's probably not enough for a brand to have one of those Values, I would say in order to survive today. They needed to diversify a little bit perhaps I saw an example with Guinness just the other day really where they try to be a bit more playful Because you know, the world rugby world cup is on at the moment and I went got beaten by New Zealand New Zealand's are called, you know, obviously they were black. There was a Twitter advertisement by Guinness said You know what? Have a Karlsburg. We're done with black So that's a different brand personality, you know, that's one really and play for it So we're trying to diversify a bit in that terms of brand personality And I think it's interesting I think there's a risk with creating just a one-dimensional brand personality for today's consumers I think because people see themselves in many different ways And also because there is all of this kind of call out culture and there's all of this rethinking of things and because the ads are out there people can think about them for a bit longer You know, it would be I think to frame yourself as rugged which maybe perhaps somebody like Nike might have done before They've really deconstructed that completely and they can be all things to all people so in a sense you kind of have brands Having multiple identities and multiple layers to their personality rather than necessarily picking one I think So you have you know cosmetic brands which are feminine and that but also rugged at the same time and strong So I think that's quite an interesting thing rather than sticking with one particular personality change You make a good point there really, you know that ruggedness is Yeah, yeah and sophistication to some extent as well and that's of course something that Arcus Brown personnel who don't really cover do you see other aspects which are not really covered by this classical model by Jennifer Arkham? Yeah, I mean, I think also that there are national identities around brands I suppose that's something I'm particularly interested in around languages and What they can convey so I think the nationality of a brand is quite interesting and consumers are quite attached to sort of the nationalities of brands and they're a big part of their personality so to come back to dream again You have very big drink and glamorous like ABB who own practically every brand of beer that you see when you walk into a pub But they all have very different personalities and a lot of the personality is based around nationality so fastest as Australian Corona is Mexican also the things like that and It's a kind of a lazy way of creating a personality for a brand. You're relying on a stereotype of a country But it works. Yeah, yeah, I mean, and also a big thing which is happening now are Much more micro type of brands which are very focused on ethical trading on sustainability ethical consumption organic produce and What you see is I mean, I'm amazed by these people so designers people like that very small-scale Companies who have incredibly slick branding and very coherent messaging so it's not necessarily something that has to be done by an advertising agency in in London or Paris anymore people are Really really good at this, you know the level of visual literacy and the ability to create these designs and Reinvent these designs all the time by people is amazing, I think you know craft beer is a case in point since we're on the drinks Well, time is short as ever. It's fascinating and we could go on We always say that burner don't we with every single And I think it's time we we stopped talking about cars and beers and whatever Episodes have been we talked a bit about cosmetics, so Helen, thank you so much Fascinating and lovely to have you on this episode. Thanks ever so much. Thank you. Thank you very much We did the interview with Helen Kelly homes and we talked a lot at the end about brand personalities and how they can also have national identity but also how they can have age and gender and We're very happy that we will look now at an example of a brand or an example of branding where the brand is actually given an age and gender Erica, do you want to introduce what we're looking at? Yeah, so we're going to be looking at a video. It's an advert of some sort and it's not not a proper advert It's an advert of a product that is being withdrawn and that's the Volkswagen a combi So it's more like a PR video rather than an advertisement and we would love to share the actual sounds of the Recording with you, but we are having trouble with copyright permissions in every episode of ours So we've just given up on trying So instead the listeners you will have to do with us reciting some of the text, but we will add the link to the YouTube video on our website So you're welcome to go click on it and listen to it and it's really worth watching It's really worth watching you find the link on on the blog post that goes with this episode. The recording starts with shorts off the air and feels, and it starts with an elderly female voice with a sentimental air, and it says, "How am I feeling? Well, surprisingly good. It's strange and now. You never think this day will come. I'm going now. But if you think about it, that's just what I've been doing my whole life. I've always been on the go. And then we see the Kombi drive by." Right, and that's it. It's about the discontinuation of this iconic product, the Volkswagen Kombi. And what we have here is a really nice example of how a brand is personified, because you actually have this voice of the elderly woman, and it talks about I. And it's about basically the product that I say goodbye to its customers after an old lady reminiscing about her life. So she goes on to say, "I was born in the late 1940s. Please don't be so rude as to calculate my age." So here, she directly addresses the audience, sort of tying them in really. And then she says, "Well, I went out and conquered the world, and then we got lots of historical footage and various stages of that personified brand's life, et cetera." And she also introduces characters who are sort of linked to the Volkswagen Kombi human characters in a particular way. Yeah. And of course, we also see her, let's say, in a woodstock setting. And what I also noticed, and I'm not sure whether you noticed, but they seem to be playing with this personification as well a bit in the text itself, because she says at some point, "If you are a human being and live on the planet, on planet Earth, we certainly cross paths." She basically, you know, is a personified version of a van, but she addresses the audience and says, "If you're a human being, and this is a nice play on what is going on now." So this craze are human brand, you know, and then she introduces quite a few human characters, so she says, "If I hadn't gone around the world, you know, I wouldn't have made so many friends." Like Frank and Iris, they went around the world with me, or Mary and Maya, this girl was born and tightened, I feel kind of responsible for her, as if she was a person she links up with human friends. And then linking up with human friends, but she also talks to the audience. So she uses, you know, general ways of interacting with the audience, things like, but if you think about that, so you as in general, you, but she also says very direct things like, "Please don't calculate my age," or, "Nice curves, eh?" No, that's quite nice, you know. You see the developer of the Volkswagen Combi, how he does a really rough sketch, you know, of the model, and he says, "Mmm, nice curve, right?" So it's almost flirtatious, you know, well, it is flirtatious, really, you know, so that's quite nice. And she's also in, you know, inviting the people who were at Woodstock to think about those good times, because she says at some point, "Those were good times," and I was there as well. So it's all one big community, and she was just part of that, you know, being a van, but also being this old lady talking about those times. But then we have also a break in the story. I mean, this whole thing is, of course, also a great example of storytelling, telling the life story, the so-called life story of this brand, and storytelling is something we'll be looking at in an upcoming episode. But you have a break in this story, and free the Volkswagen Combi says, but then one day the announcement came. And what we see is a newspaper page with an advertisement, which is really interesting, because it says the advertisement that is shown in the video says, "Unintroducing the Volkswagen bus soon at no dealership near you." So that played with the typical conventions of product advertising, right, by turning it into the negative. So that's quite nicely done as well, I think. Yes, it was great. Yes, and then following from this, they show a lot of clips from news from all over the world, and that reflects nicely what Helen said earlier about multilingualism in advertising, that in these clips, the language is really not important. We kind of can guess what they talk about, but they are there to symbolize just how global the Combi is and how global the effect of this withdrawal will be. Yeah, so it's the global brand. So on the one hand, it's this person who relates to us and who we can relate to, but also it's a global brand that speaks or is at least spoken about in many different languages. And the news itself has a global impact, and at the very end of the ad, what do we also see is that she goes back to the beginning, how am I feeling? So she started off with that question, and the circle is round now with a final question. And she says, "Surprisingly good." And I think that is the kind of feeling that people also have after watching this clip. Very much so. If you read the comments under the YouTube video, you will find out many, many people react to that emotional message. You know, people say, "Cry, I am sad." And as the comments keep coming, the heat is sort of turned up. They go, "Oh God, they cried so hard, so hard." So, you know, it is evident that people respond to that emotional message. And they wouldn't be able to do that if the brand was not shown as a person, because who can't really relate to a piece of engineering, which is what a Volkswagen Combi ultimately is. You don't cry over a piece of engineering, I suppose, but you can actually emotionally relate to a personified brand. So, that's quite interesting. And there's also praise for the makers of this video. And that's actually also something that we'll be looking at at another episode, how marketers and consumers actually engage in a dialogue, and one talks to the consumers, but then the consumer also talks back. So, that's something to look forward to in one of our forthcoming episodes. Yes, so we thank you for your attention at this time. And we hope that you like the episode, and we can't wait to read your reviews, comments, emails, and posts about words and actions. Yes, and do check our website again. We do have the link to the YouTube clip, but also, but also be including some of these memes that we were talking about earlier on as well. So, have a look at them too. Thank you very much. I think that's all for now. Yes, bye. Thank you for listening. We hope you enjoyed the podcast, which was brought to you with the support of the Centre of Critical Inquiries into Society and Culture at Aston University in the UK, and the Department of Translation, Interpreting and Communication at the University of Gett, Belgium.