Equivalent facts can lead to different choices depending on how they are framed.
More quotesNot understanding the slogan was part of understanding the slogan.
Audi’s German did not need to deliver a literal product explanation. Its refusal to translate performed confidence: this comes from somewhere, that somewhere matters, and we are not sanding it down for your convenience. The unfamiliarity was evidence.
Most brands would now feed that edge through six rounds of stakeholder review. Could it alienate non-German speakers? Can we make it warmer? What if we add “innovative mobility solutions” underneath? By launch, the confident German car has become an internationally approved bowl of porridge.
Provenance works like this elsewhere. Keep the name of the dish, then explain what arrives on the plate. Retain the specialist term that proves a craft tradition, then make buying easy around it. Do not translate an identity until it says nothing.
There is a line between conviction and theatre. Foreign words sprinkled on an ordinary product are costume, and obscurity that blocks the sale is self-indulgence. The sharp detail must carry truthful meaning, not merely continental perfume.
I want brands to ask which parts of themselves should remain slightly demanding. Accessibility does not require erasing origin, character or standards. Sometimes confidence is the thing left untranslated—and the explanation built around it rather than over it.