Pharmaceutical and Medical Packaging News
Magazine
PMPN Article Index
Originally Published PMPN June 2005
Brand Matters
Overlabels to Overwhelm No More
Managing the processes and databases needed for multilingual labeling will help you avoid overlabeling and best serve your brand’s image.
Robert C. Sprung, TippingSprung LLC
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| Robert C. Sprung |
In my column for the April 2005 issue, I explored one of the major culprits behind overlabeling—the lack of a standard character code. Today, we examine two others: the lack of a standard process for dealing with foreign languages and the lack of a standard database format so that information can be read and transmitted reliably around the world.
Standardizing such behind-the-scenes work may not be part of the average marketing professional’s job, but doing so will help him or her direct brand image properly.
Many U.S. companies lack a standardized multilanguage labeling process around the world. It is not uncommon for U.S. headquarters to produce labeling in English and western European languages, while the Japanese, Brazilian, and Russian offices overlabel in their local languages.
The reason is largely historic. Many U.S. firms left the task of developing labeling conventions to local markets, particularly in those countries where the U.S. firms had little knowledge of the local language. With no standardization, the local offices did whatever was most convenient.
The result is a highly decentralized, disparate picture. The table at right illustrates a hypothetical company, but one not far from the typical U.S. firm.
The following basic steps are key to minimizing overlabeling and allowing headquarters (or any graphics department, for that matter) to produce an original label reliably in all languages:
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| Table 1. Different systems and scenarios make standardizing labeling procedures for worldwide locations a challenge (click to enlarge). |
• Adopt Unicode as an encoding standard. Without this, it is almost impossible to stop overlabeling.
• Maintain a shared repository of regional labeling requirements. Adopt a mechanism for updating such requirements.
• Agree on a standard software platform for generating labels worldwide. Choose an application and fonts that work easily with Unicode. As of this writing, the word-on-the-street considers InDesign more Unicode-friendly than Quark, although Quark is striving to catch up.
• Keep a centralized translation database. A relational structure (as opposed to static documents like Word or Excel tables) will make it easier for a labeling application to access translations and to leverage previously translated material. The database should include tight rules on which countries merit regional linguistic variants (e.g., French for Canada will differ from French for Europe, but if you allow each Latin-American country to have a different version of Spanish, this can become a headache to administer) and on linguistic conventions such as gender and number. If you agree that individual adjectives will appear in masculine singular, then you won’t have to store every variant.
Organizations that adhere to the above methodology will also lay the groundwork for the next generation in labeling and document generation: data-driven document and label formats such as XML and SVG. These can substantially cut product development.
Robert C. Sprung can be reached at robert@tippingsprung.com. TippingSprung (New York City) offers brand strategy, naming, and design services with a focus on the needs of technology companies.
Copyright ©2005 Pharmaceutical & Medical Packaging News
