Migrant Advertising Part 1

(The slogan reads "I'm sending so much more than money". Apart from the firm's name, there isn't a word of English on the entire poster.)

A few weeks before I set up BoB I came across this advertisement on a bus stop in south Brent. It was written entirely in Polish and so came as quite a shock to me, my first language not having been widely used enough before in London for multinational advertisers to consider using it. At last count (December 2005) the Home Office's Worker Registration Scheme puts the number of Poles who have entered the UK labour market since EU enlargement at 204,895, though I am sure it is higher since membership of the scheme is not widely policed and does not seem to be a requirement for getting a National Insurance number (UPDATE May 11th 2006: The Economist thinks it is "over half a million"). The poster is proof of that number of working people with an interest in remittance services being a large enough market to focus advertising expenditure on to the exclusion of other language groups, even the dominant one.

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Comments

[Riccardo]

Yes, is true, the "dominant language group" just got forgotten, but is this a surprise for you Filip?? I'm seeing all the time ads in English here in Sweden, and my much beloved Portugal is full of publicity posters carts in Russian, its called multi-culturalism - what i stll think that it is a very nice thing indeed, for a very different number of reasons. Sign of times, New Babylon is across the corner - didn't you heard that Madame Laura Bush stated that she sees no wrong in singing the "star spangle banner" in Spanish? Respect

[filipb]

Hi Ricardo,

Thanks for your comment. I suppose that someone from the continent will be less surprised to discover another language being newly widely used compared to a Brit. I think this would be because of European experience with English as a cultural "influence" (to use a neutral term) on their societies. Postwar Americanisation did not manifest itself so obviously in linguistic terms because our language is (almost) the same.

Regards, Filip

PS the effect of Spanish in the USA is fascinating

[Jordan 11]

When you give others smile, you will also forget the worry, is joyful. Your smile, transmits for others, will be one kind of ordinary happiness, but, the ordinariest thing, will be often most moving. smile, outside one kind of spoken language happiness