Closed Bug 1217971 Opened 9 years ago Closed 9 years ago

Headline on /firefox/choose/

Categories

(Mozilla Localizations :: de / German, defect)

Product:
Mozilla Localizations
Component:
de / German
Type:
defect
Priority:
Not set
Severity:
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

Status:
VERIFIED FIXED

People

(Reporter: ckprice, Unassigned)

References

Details

We partnered with an agency to create banners which link to the campaign landing page
https://www-dev.allizom.org/de/firefox/choose/

This is a high visibility campaign, and we want to ensure the language in the banner ads are consistent with the landing page. As such, we've asked them to take a look at the headline copy, and give feedback.

--

Übernimm die Kontrolle.
Hol dir Firefox.

Feedback: more direct form sending the same message.

--

Please review, and share your thoughts.
No longer blocks: 1217973
Where are these banners going to appear? Because the suggestion uses informal address in contrast with the website, which uses formal address.
(In reply to Michael Köhler [:Coce] from comment #1)
> Where are these banners going to appear? Because the suggestion uses
> informal address in contrast with the website, which uses formal address.

Across several platforms (Facebook, ad networks, etc.). The general audience will be 18-35 years of age.
In that case the proposed text should be fine for the ads but is unsuitable for the website where formal address is used. If this slight inconsistency is acceptable, there should be no issue.
(In reply to Michael Köhler [:Coce] from comment #3)
> In that case the proposed text should be fine for the ads but is unsuitable
> for the website where formal address is used. If this slight inconsistency
> is acceptable, there should be no issue.
Hi Michael, thanks for the response!

When you say 'website', do you mean the website at large, or translations on just this webpage? (or both).
Flags: needinfo?(coce)
Hi Cory,

I am basically referring to all Mozilla websites, because we use formal address on all of them. The only issue with the suggestion is the form of address, otherwise it’s fine by me.
Flags: needinfo?(coce)
Thanks Michael - okay, let's go with the suggestion in comment 0.
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 9 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
NI flod, :Coce - was the translations on the bedrock translation updated per comment 0?
Flags: needinfo?(francesco.lodolo)
Flags: needinfo?(coce)
I don't think so
https://github.com/mozilla-l10n/www.mozilla.org/blob/master/de/firefox/choose.lang#L31

As Michael explained, Mozilla websites use a formal tone for German, having a headline with a completely different register doesn't make much sense.

English doesn't have much of a distinction between formal and informal, but it's a lot more evident in other languages.
Flags: needinfo?(francesco.lodolo)
Precisely.
Flags: needinfo?(coce)
(In reply to Francesco Lodolo [:flod] from comment #8)
> I don't think so
> https://github.com/mozilla-l10n/www.mozilla.org/blob/master/de/firefox/
> choose.lang#L31
> 
> As Michael explained, Mozilla websites use a formal tone for German, having
> a headline with a completely different register doesn't make much sense.

The issue is that we're driving people to this page from the campaign ads, which use a more direct, casual tone, so for those users there's a pretty big disconnect. We're trying to do some different things with this campaign and that includes reaching a different, younger audience than we've ever targeted before. It would be great if we could update the copy to give our users a seamless experience across all campaign elements.

I see that we're also using the formal voice in the two blurbs at the bottom, so we should update those as well.

Thanks.
Hi, I’m not sure if I understand correctly. Do you want to change the ads to formal address or the German Choose page to informal address?
(In reply to Michael Köhler [:Coce] from comment #11)
> Hi, I’m not sure if I understand correctly. Do you want to change the ads to
> formal address or the German Choose page to informal address?

The ads are already running and were deliberately written to be informal, so we should change the language on the page to match.
Which will make the Choose website become inconsistent with all the other websites in terms of formal/informal address. Is this a good idea?
(In reply to Michael Köhler [:Coce] from comment #13)
> Which will make the Choose website become inconsistent with all the other
> websites in terms of formal/informal address. Is this a good idea?

This page (/choose), will *only* see traffic from the ads. I think it's worse if the campaign is inconsistent from one piece to the next than if our pages are.

As we continue to try to reach new markets and new kinds of users, I wonder if we should take a bigger look at the voice we use on our Web properties as a whole. This is something we may want to tailor depending on who a particular page or site is targeted at or how those users get there.
(In reply to Matej Novak [:matej] from comment #14)
> This page (/choose), will *only* see traffic from the ads. I think it's
> worse if the campaign is inconsistent from one piece to the next than if our
> pages are.

This is only partially true, given that we've been asked to use the same slogan on the download page (bug 1224299), and I think that change is going live next week.

I also believe that's a much larger discussion: is informal tone really the best choice for that kind of target in all countries and cultures? I don't know the answer.
ok, I was not CCed, now I am and I am going to give my feedback.

There was an intent to do the exact same thing in French. The French l10n team, myself included rejected it politely. Using tutoiement in French is not more direct, it's just plain rude in our cultural context unless you brand is Disney Channel or Durex. In the context of the banners it was also slightly sexually explicit and none of our competitors do that for their own advertising (yes I am talking Chrome, IE...) targetting the *exact* same audience. Needless to say that I don't consider the people that proposed that for my language as good advertisers and given that I believe they are from that same agency, my trust in them is eroded.

If pages are *really* isolated with *really* targetted ads, using a clever informal tone, then maybe, yes. Some brands do that, in a long term internal strategy, with great success... and great planning and cleverness. But that's not the case, we are talking here of changing the whole communication of the Mozilla project following a short term contract with an adversiding agency with the potential to alienate our user base in the messaging by talking to them as if they were 12 year old kids.

Here are  a few random pointers explaining the problems in advertising of informal verbal voices in French;
http://steveaxentios.ch/quand-les-marques-vous-disent-tu/
http://www.leconomiste.com/article/884930-voulez-vous-me-tutoyer
http://www.proz.com/forum/french/283360-publicit%C3%A9s_tutoiement_ou_vouvoiement.html

If this is super risky for French, I want the insurance that this is not the case for German too, as hinted by our own localizers here. We have spent years building a brand and image and Germany is our biggest market in user base after the US, which proves we did succeed our communication.

So my questions are:
- where is the result of the A/B testing done?
- what are the metrics of success
- where is the detailed rationale leading to that solution?
- why has the French team been consulted before the fact and apparently not the German one?
- what is the emergency backup plan in case it blows up in the face?
- On Which exact communication channels will these banners be? I mean, urls, names, not vague social media.

In short, if we want to communicate with an informal tone to drive downloads from kids, we can create separate templates with wevdevs on mozilla.org to funnel the traffic there, but all this seems rushed and dangerous to me and I am talking as somebody with a background in business and marketing who has participated in all Mozilla adverstising campaigns over the last 15 years, not as the engineer I moved my career to in the last 5 years.
(In reply to Michael Köhler [:Coce] from comment #13)
> Which will make the Choose website become inconsistent with all the other
> websites in terms of formal/informal address. Is this a good idea?

(In reply to Pascal Chevrel:pascalc from comment #16)
> If pages are *really* isolated with *really* targetted ads, using a clever
> informal tone, then maybe, yes.

The only traffic we are driving to this page are traffic from the advertisements. This is going to be the case here.

NI :flod, :Coce - can we please update the translation on THIS page only to informal? Note we have a recommendation for at least the headline in comment 0. It sounds like there may be a larger discussion regarding the rest of the site, but I'd like to focus on just this page if possible.

:flod - let me know if we need a bug to get the translation into place on bedrock.

I've also added bug 1224299 as a reference here. This bug is updating the /new/ page headline to match /choose/. Given the conversation here, it sounds like we will need a separate conversation to also update the /new/ headline to informal - which I will open a bug for.
Status: RESOLVED → REOPENED
Flags: needinfo?(francesco.lodolo)
Flags: needinfo?(coce)
Resolution: FIXED → ---
See Also: → 1224299
(In reply to Matej Novak [:matej] from comment #14)
> (In reply to Michael Köhler [:Coce] from comment #13)
> > Which will make the Choose website become inconsistent with all the other
> > websites in terms of formal/informal address. Is this a good idea?
> 
> This page (/choose), will *only* see traffic from the ads. I think it's
> worse if the campaign is inconsistent from one piece to the next than if our
> pages are.
> 
> As we continue to try to reach new markets and new kinds of users, I wonder
> if we should take a bigger look at the voice we use on our Web properties as
> a whole. This is something we may want to tailor depending on who a
> particular page or site is targeted at or how those users get there.

I agree that we should.

I'd like that look to be at which relationships we want to create.

I also want that look to be critical wrt the demographic shifts that happen in Europe, and in Germany in particular. AKA, young Germans is a dying species.

I also think that we need to include a bunch of German mozillians in this conversation, as I think it's hard to understand mozilla and Germany at the same time.

PS: The concerns from comment 16 by pascalc don't apply in Germany. There are quite a few brands like Ikea that use informal address for decades. That doesn't make that option great for us, yet.
(In reply to Cory Price [:ckprice] from comment #17)
> NI :flod, :Coce - can we please update the translation on THIS page only to
> informal? Note we have a recommendation for at least the headline in comment
> 0. It sounds like there may be a larger discussion regarding the rest of the
> site, but I'd like to focus on just this page if possible.
> 
> :flod - let me know if we need a bug to get the translation into place on
> bedrock.

I'll leave the NI open for Michael to fix the page. I don't trust myself in doing it, because I don't know if any of the blurbs need fixing as well for consistency (I'd imagine so).

No need for technical fixes on Bedrock's side: the string is not shared, there's one in each file, so we can have different translations.
https://github.com/mozilla-l10n/www.mozilla.org/blob/master/de/firefox/choose.lang#L31
https://github.com/mozilla-l10n/www.mozilla.org/blob/master/de/firefox/new.lang#L18
Flags: needinfo?(francesco.lodolo)
https://github.com/mozilla-l10n/www.mozilla.org/commit/5ab4db3711406e4d4ef3b20448d34979654583ab

I hope it worked. As far as I can see, whatever link the user clicks on from this page will take him to another page which is using formal address again.
Flags: needinfo?(coce)
From what I can tell, the page hasn't changed yet: https://www.mozilla.org/de/firefox/choose/
Not a cache problem, a template problem
https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/blob/master/bedrock/firefox/templates/firefox/base-resp.html#L5

base-resp loads firefox/new.lang and ignores the string in new.lang, trying to figure out if there's a way out without touching the string in new.lang
(In reply to Cory Price [:ckprice] from comment #17)
> (In reply to Michael Köhler [:Coce] from comment #13)
> > Which will make the Choose website become inconsistent with all the other
> > websites in terms of formal/informal address. Is this a good idea?
> 
> (In reply to Pascal Chevrel:pascalc from comment #16)
> > If pages are *really* isolated with *really* targetted ads, using a clever
> > informal tone, then maybe, yes.
> 
> The only traffic we are driving to this page are traffic from the
> advertisements. This is going to be the case here.
> 
> NI :flod, :Coce - can we please update the translation on THIS page only to
> informal? Note we have a recommendation for at least the headline in comment
> 0. It sounds like there may be a larger discussion regarding the rest of the
> site, but I'd like to focus on just this page if possible.

We should definitely make this page consistent, so if we update the headline, let's do the rest of the copy as well (if required). Thanks.
I temporarily patched new.lang, since it's unused for a few more hours.
https://github.com/mozilla-l10n/bedrock-l10n/commit/75b7b138d68b76f606f37f9001249297f9e51409

Paul is helping in figuring out the order we load templates (I assumed even with multiple lang files, the one associated to the template would override existing translations).
Commits pushed to master at https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock

https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/d07941c5a634f7981fc4607ab153335b29dd4e1b
Bug 1217971 - Add explicit lang file directive

This lets us override strings coming from new.lang (loaded in
base-resp.html). Thanks to Pascal for the idea.

https://github.com/mozilla/bedrock/commit/ce7560834f192e0fecad09578b2649683399b8c2
Merge pull request #3569 from flodolo/bug1217971

Bug 1217971 - Add lang file directive to firefox/choose
Fixed
https://www.mozilla.org/de/firefox/choose/
https://www.mozilla.org/de/firefox/new/ (old formal slogan)
Status: REOPENED → RESOLVED
Closed: 9 years ago → 9 years ago
Resolution: --- → FIXED
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
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