‘Mahaprabandhak of Maruti Suzuki Ltd has done
a ghoshna in a Samvaaddata Sammelan
of its vistaar yojnaa in India for 2020′
or
‘Ford Figo facelift has ekdum braabar
engine capacity of its pichhlaa wala varient’
or
‘10 aisi kaaren jo aap 10 lakh rupaye mein
khareed sakte hain in the year 2019’
How would an English-reader treat if such a headline published in an English magazine or English daily newspaper? Will a reader appreciate such piece of text which has lots of spelling errors, grammatical errors, linguistic errors and has a lot of inconsistencies in the usage of words/technical jargon? Is it good enough for an English newspaper reader that these headlines are written using English alphabets but the Hindi words are written there? Technical terms are fine but why the other linguistic terms are used in Hindi here?
If it is not tasteful and if it is not acceptable for the English content and for any English-reader, same is true for the Hindi-reader and for the Hindi content also. Why do the Hindi content writers or publishers think that content written in English language should be absolutely perfect but the quality check is not necessary for the Hindi content?
I generally review magazines only but recently I have noticed a popular website in the automotive domain, www.CarWale.com, where they have started putting articles in Hindi around three months ago. I have gone through more than 100 (One Hundred) of Hindi articles posted there and found it very disappointing. I am not surprised if only 2 or 3 Hindi articles out of 100 articles have got ‘Likes’ from the readers that were posted in the last three months. That made me to write this review, not to highlight thier mistakes but to bring thier attention to the areas where there is scope of improvement, where they can take some corrective steps.
What if a brand name is misspelt repeatedly and it is written incorrectly at various places and that too within the same article? How would you take it if you read MARUTI is written as MAARUTI and then MAROTI and then MARUTIE or MAROOTI? Or if you read HONDA as HAWNDA or HONDAA or HAUNDA? An excuse can be that if the readers are getting what it is meant for, it is fine. But why a brand owner will tollerate if he finds that his brand and product names are represented incorrectly, for example, if SUZUKI is written as SUJUKI or SUZOOKI or SUZUKE or if CIAZ is written as SIAZ or CIYAZ or CIAJ or if EON is written ION or EYON or EEON etc.? I assume, if the brand owners have not reacted on such errors it clearly means they are not reading these articles or they have not noticed yet. Otherwise such errors cannot be taken for granted that can spoil a reputation of a brand.
I understand that it is not a literary content product where readers go and care for the language, it is a product of domain specific information and editorial reviews & opinions. But information alone cannot hold a reader for longer but the language and the jargon plays a vital role to create a strong bond between the audience and the content. In these articles, not only the technical terms are written incorrectly but usage of Hindi words are also wrong and lots of common Hindi words are written misspelt. As a content critic, I see a huge scope of improvement in terms of quality in this product. I am sure, since it was started, readers might have brought this into CarWale’s notice, but I don’t find any improvement after 100 days are passed and more than 100 articles with the poor language are posted here.
While I am writing this review about Hindi content of CarWale, I can remember that many other publications and content products who have had same issues with the language and they failed even though their content (information) was brilliant. Most of the time publishers do the same mistakes when they come up with idea of launching the Hindi edition of their existing brand (English edition), they do ‘a try’ or they do it with ’no investment’. I have seen and experienced lots of such ‘half heartedly’ launched Hindi products and their failures also, and after failing their analysis also – ‘It didn’t work because advertisers didn’t show faith in Hindi edition!’
In this review, I am sharing my experience in following points hoping that it can be helpful to such publishers and may be who are planning to come up with the Hindi edition as a brand extension for their existing English edition-
- Do not try. Do it with the conviction. I have seen many of such half-heartedly started launches that failed because of lack of confidence. If you yourself do not have faith in your product, why will your client or advertiser will have? Most of the time our sales executives tell this in the first line- ‘we are testing the water…’, or ‘ we have just started for a trial…’ and obviously advertiser never signs the deal.
- Do not take it as a language edition, treat it as a stand alone product. Most of the time Hindi or any other vernacular language edition is treated step-motherly and in many cases such products die because of this only. It would need proper commitment, focus, dedicated resources, time and money as we require to launch and nurture any brand for that matter. Generally, publishers think that they will put resources and money on this once they will get a good response out of this. And, they expect such results within first six months of launch. Do you think that it is correct?
- Its not mere a translation job, its absolutely fresh content development. My experience is that most of such language editions just die even in their infancy. Most of the publishers do blunder that they assume that it is just a translation job and the rest we have already in place and that is where they lose the opportunity to build another stronger product that could have helped them to create even bigger brand.
- Quality from the beginning. I have seen publishers compromising on the content quality in order to cut the initial cost. Their logic says they will put money once this ’trial’ product will start getting response. I have never seen such unprofessional way to launch any other product in any industry. On the contrary, marketers put their best quality for the sampling to hook the customers May be, later they can start compromising the quality once the product becomes popular in the market. But, the publishers think opposite to this. Publishers need to put money in creating good quality content first, they can cut costs on other sides or they can generate other money generating streams later.
- Content Re-versioning. It’s just not enough to translate text from English to Hindi and using same visuals and layout for the both editions. Sometimes you need to change the complete presentation of an article as it is to be served to a Hindi reader from the way it was originally presented to an English reader. Not only the translator/rewriter but the editor/visualiser also need to have great understanding of its Targeted Hindi Audience; their socio-economic understanding, their preferences, their likes-dislikes etc. This is very critical aspect where most of the publications fail.
- Product Customisation. This is very important, As I have said that it should be seen and treated as a separate product, it needs its own identity to meet the needs of its TG. Surely, the major chunk will remain the same as your English edition has, but Hindi edition must address some consumer and small scale developers issues and interests as well.
All the above said issues are ‘strategic’ issues that are mostly tackled by the key decision makers or the publisher of any media company, but the most important part is the ‘execution’ that is taken care by the editor or the editorial team. If this product is going to remain as the secondary or by-product only, then whatever minimum resources you put on this project, that must be the best in their domain. For Hindi publication, the execution part is more critical and complicated than the English edition as it needs great experience & understanding of language versatility & dynamics unlike the English language that is standard for the people from J&K to the Kanyakumari. Hindi team or the person needs special skills to handle the Hindi softwares, fonts & keyboard complications, manual proof reading, consistencies in usage of terms, creating your own stylesheet etc. The execution team must have capabilities to think strategically as well as execute the project independently.
I hope that CarWale team will take a note from this review and will take some corrective measures soon to improve their product and readers will see a great product in terms of information, flavour and presentation also.
For more reviews…
इस वर्ष का मेरा पहला रिव्यू, और वह भी हिन्दी भाषा में! संयोग से जो मैगज़ीन रिव्यू के लिए मेरे सम्मुख आई है वह भी हिन्दी भाषा में ही है इसलिए हिन्दी में ही रिव्यू करना और भी सार्थक हो जाता है। यह है हाल ही में शुरु हुई मासिक पत्रिका – ‘मैं हूँ किसान’ जो कि कृषि एवं किसानों से जुड़े विषयों पर सामग्री प्रस्तुत करने के उद्देश्य से जयपुर स्थित हैनिमैन चैरिटेबल मिशन सोसाइटी नामक संस्थान द्वारा प्रकाशित की जा रही है।
मैगज़ीन की हालत बिल्कुल अपने विषय के अनुरूप ही है, कृषि की जैसी दुर्दशा है वैसी ही हालत में यह पत्रिका भी है। मैंने अपने रिव्यूस में पहले भी कहा है कि किसी एक क्षेत्र में अच्छा-खासा अनुभव रखने या संबंधित विषय के बारे में बहुत सी जानकारी-सूचनाएँ एकत्र कर लेने या उस क्षेत्र से संबंधित लोगों-अधिकारियों-विभागों आदि में जान-पहचान हो जाने मात्र से लोगों को अक्सर यह गलतफहमी हो जाती है कि वे उस क्षेत्र में या उस विषय पर एक बढ़िया मैगज़ीन प्रकाशित कर सकते हैं। और बस, उनकी इसी गलतफहमी का परिणाम होता है, ‘मैं हूँ किसान’ जैसी स्तरहीन मैगज़ीन। पूरा रिव्यू पढ़ें
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Now ‘Times What’s Up?!’ is recently launched magazine by Times Of India group which is also in the same genre but interestingly it is just opposite to WRC in terms of content. TWU is merely a compilation of advertorials and promotional features except of very editorial articles. A very unique proposition and solves fairly its purpose to help consumers to in buying. Full Review…
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What comes to your mind when someone promises you to take for a ‘Travel with Style’? Obviously, a stylish and luxurious traveling experience! I also expected the same when I picked up this magazine from newsstand which is launched last month only by Sampan Media Pvt. Ltd. But it wiped out all my expectations from this magazine when I read it thoroughly. Full Review…
Everything that is out of the box is not an innovation. It is not necessary always is the result of creativity but also can be because of negligence. This belief of mine became even stronger after going through recently launched magazine – Innowin. The moment I saw the launch issue on the stands, when I picked up the issue in my hands, it looked different but was that enough? Here’s how do I feel about this magazine after going through it closely. Full Review…
National Geographic Traveller (NGT) is another publication surrounded with yellow frame and has earned same respect for its journalistic values. Its Indian edition is launched by ACK media (very well known for Amar Chitra Katha, Tinkle & Karadi Tales) this month where it has to compete with other existing international & Indian publications like Conde Nast Traveller, Lonely Planet Magazine, Outlook Traveller, Travel Plus, Geo etc to create its own mind-share. Full Review…
‘Franchise India Publication’, the publisher of various other publications like Estate World, The Franchising World, Retailer and many web portals has recently launched a new magazine- Small Medium Entrepreneur. As name suggests itself that it is to target the small & medium sized businesses & entrepreneurs in the country where couple of other magazines already are there to target the same genre. It is quite common of having many magazines from same genre with very similar or resembling titles but at least their treatment should be different if you want to create your own identity. Full Review…
I always see ‘Popular Science’ magazine as a periodical that explains the reality of this scientific universe in simple language to a common and a layman where he lives. It covers every aspect science and technology that touches our day-to-day life and may affect our future. It brings science from scientists’ laboratories to the layman’s level understanding of complicated facts & principles and that is why I prefer to call it ‘People Science’ magazine. Full Review…
In the launch issue of Hindi edition of Filmfare, Editor Jitesh Pillai has signed off his edit note with- ‘I hope that the same affection & bonding you would share with Hindi edition of Filmfare the way you have been doing for the last sixty years with English edition’. After going through the issue I was surprised if two products are not at same level in terms of editorial quality & seriousness, how can you expect the same kind of treatment & bonding from the consumer for them? In fact, for that matter, any magazine which has no editorial vision or has not done complete editorial ground work or is not serious about its standards or does not understand the content needs of its audience that magazine cannot become a great magazine. Full Review…
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