Brazilian Language School + Sex Appeal = More English Students?

In Brazil, if you can’t speak English, you get banished to an island full of many Mike Tysons instead of spending the rest of your days lounging with bikini-clad Megan Fox clones. Maybe that’s not exactly true, but that’s the idea behind a new commercial for the Brazilian language school, CCAA.

CCAA is a Brazilian school that teaches English. The ad is a clear cut to the “sex appeal” marketing technique and was created to persuade Portuguese-speaking Brazilians, specifically potential male students, to attend their school and learn to speak English to talk to Megan Fox.

The commercial starts with two teenage boys washing up onshore of an island. The boys are greeted by Megan Fox and her many clones who beg the boys to talk to them. The boys start speaking in Portuguese because neither can speak English. Since they are unable to speak to the Foxes, they are tied-up and sent to another island also inhabited by celebrity clones. Unfortunately, they are horrified to learn that these clones are of Mike Tyson, and they are stranded there.

The school is obviously aiming to say that Brazilians need to learn English so that they can communicate with sexy actresses and English speaking women. What do you think of the ad? Do you think the commercial will capture the attention and get more people learning to speak English?

Watch the full commercial here.

Precision Language & Graphics- 2011 Highlights

With 2012 just starting, the PLG team would like to say that we hope everything went well with you last year. We also wanted to share a few quick facts with you to wrap up 2011.

·         Despite a rough national economy, following a wonderful growth of 50% in 2010, PLG saw a 27% growth in sales in 2011, and we hope to have an even higher percentage in sales growth in 2012.

·         We have expanded our in-house language abilities to include French with the addition of a new team member, Crista Busse – Program Manager.

·         We have also added Eric Mora, Manager – Business Development, as a team member focused directly on marketing and sales. A dedicated marketing staff will reinforce our commitment to customized services to our valued customers.

·         As mentioned in the December 2011 newsletter, we have worked to create even closer relationships with our local clients as part of our effort to support local communities and businesses.

·         Although previously utilizing translation memory (TM) software, we have greatly increased our use and mastered both TM and alignment software – used to input your previous translations into a TM to remain consistent in your personal translations – both improving consistency and lowering translation costs for our clients. Our next step in improving the overall translation process is a full implementation of Trados’ other key technology, the glossary-keeping program, MultiTerm.

·         We expanded our service scope to cover interpreting and voice over for video and audio applications in 2011.

·         We have updated and increased our database of translators by almost 450%! One benefit of this growth is that about 1/3 of our translators are located in the country of the target language (e.g., a French translator living in France). This benefits our clients because they can be sure that the translator knows relevant cultural and modern information. A growth of almost 450% and 1/3 of translators located in the target-language-speaking country allows us to use specialized translators for each project.

PLG would like to thank you for your business in 2011, and we hope for an even better 2012!

China Expanded Pool of Low Tariff Imports – Opportunities for US Export Companies

To boost imports and promote balanced trade, China recently lowered the average import tariffs on 730 families of goods, effective 1/1/2012.

The average tariff on more than 730 kinds of imported goods on the newly released list has been lowered to 4.4 percent as of January 1, 2012, less than half the rate for the most favored nation under WTO rules, China’s Ministry of Finance said in a statement on its website on 12/16/2011.

Imports covered in the low tariff catalogue for 2012 are in 5 categories:

1.       Energy products including coal, refined oil, marble, rare earths, etc.

2.       Products and parts used in high tier and advanced manufacturing equipment including jet looms, aircraft engines, high voltage power transmission lines, high definition cameras, etc.

3.       Products and materials for agriculture production including high power tractors, advanced combines, raw materials for pesticide production, chemical fertilizer, animal feeds, etc.

4.       Consumer goods including frozen seafood, infant milk powder, infant formulas, skin products, hair-care products, silvers, kitchen utensils, etc.

5.       Public health related products including vaccines, blood serum, hearing aids, X-ray films, etc.

China’s decision to lower the tariffs is not only an outcome of the pressures from its trade partners to balance the trade, but also based on the fact that the imported products, which now have a much easier route to come into the country, are intended to meet China's ever growing production needs and consumer demands.

After China became an official member of the WTO in December 2001, the general level of the country's import tariffs was lowered from 15.3 percent in 2001 to 9.8 percent in 2010.

The official documents released by the China Ministry of Finance regarding the tariff reduction can be found in the following 2 links (in Chinese):

http://gss.mof.gov.cn/zhengwuxinxi/zhengcefabu/201112/t20111215_615749.html

http://gss.mof.gov.cn/zhengwuxinxi/zhengcefabu/201112/P020111220608253350503.pdf

Among PLG’s customers many of them export products to China.  A significant portion of our language support to our customers is translation of product labels, equipment manuals and sales brochures for Chinese markets.   Please contact PLG for any Chinese language support.