Mauritian delight

Any communication professional is under the pressure of being respectful and careful with meanings in general, but especially since the CHARLIE Hebdo’s Scandal in January. Although this event clearly spread all over the web, physically it seemed far from Mauritius. But on the contrary, similar communication aspects are ubiquitous on our island and I have experienced this very clearly for the Chinese New Year.

At ARCADIA we were working on promotional posts and setting up a port-folio of posters to publish on special events. It was extremely interesting, we worked on what some target audiences are attracted to in terms of layout displays, catchy colours and power words. I was thrilled. But then came the hard part.

In Mauritius, since we are the most exceptional multicultural society of the Indian Ocean, or as we pretend to be, public relations practitioners have to double efforts in research and creativity to please everyone. This gives Mauritian communication students more perspective and a kind of open-mindedness that is very proper to us I think. As my father would say; that’s our little extra.

One post that I particularly remember is this one:

note: It didn't make it finally, due to some misunderstanding. (the side-effects of a double-holiday working week). Nonetheless, It presented itself with numerous flaws and difficulties, some you wouldn't even imagine were possible: 

1.    50 shades of red

When I drafted the first poster, I used a very dark-blackish red for the fonts and the pictures because they matched better with our logo’s color. But during the first revision of the portfolio I was told that it is disrespectful to use different shades of red for the New Year. An issue that was resolved within minutes.

2.       The drawings that speak Chinese

The Symbol in the middle of the picture was something I found on the web, it means “Fu” which is a way to wish prosperity. And the symbol in bold red are the Chinese translation of “Happy New Year”. Still, since I do not speak Chinese and that web resources are not exactly always accurate, we had to find a way to verify the meanings. And since I am extremely lucky to be surrounded by such a wonderful team, one of our collegues sent the pictures to her friend who spoke fluent Mandarin and validated our post’s content.

3.       It’s Chinese not Chinese

Another Issue was that I initially wrote “kung hei fat choy” instead of “kung shee fat choy”. The Incredible part in this is that both sentences mean the same thing and both are in Chinese, but they speak to two very distinct cultures. Again thanks to my super colleges we found the right meaning once more.

4.       Save the date!

At university holidays mean replacing classes during tuition breaks. So really they’re not that much of a big deal. My mistake again! In Fact we could not post the Chinese New Year Picture on Facebook since two days before that was the Mahashivaratri festival. So in the meantime, the post was forgotten about and it eventually created a big misunderstanding among our team. But nothing that could not be resolved.

5.       4 means death

As for the design, the little clouds would represent travelling and thus personalize our poster for references to holidays and business trips because after all it is a type of promotional tool. But in the beginning I designed four little clouds, and again I was reminded to consider that in Chinese culture the number four was avoided because of death connotations. So the last cloud rolled away in the wind.

Basically, we need to pay attention to every single detail in customizing a communication prop because all audiences do not perceive messages in the same way. Meaning can be surprising at times and our job is to be able to visualize those different perspectives while creating our key messages. It is very enlightening in the way that we are learning more about different cultures by doing what we do and this is the magic of public relations.