Historically, Olympic slogans have always been a little cheesy (Beijing’s ‘One world, one dream’ was spectacularly so). But as an old colleague pointed out, Sochi's is more reminiscent of a Nando’s promotion than one of the biggest events on the sporting calendar.
So what lies behind these three words that are now plastered all over Sochi’s Olympic venues, and our TV screens? This old media release explains how the slogan was conceived:
“The slogan is made up of two parts: one dynamic (changeable) and one constant. It is intended to reflect the national character of Russia and the values of the Sochi 2014 brand, as well as Sochi 2014’s progressive and innovative approach to the organization and staging of the Games.”
(At least Russia is progressive in some respects then.) The release goes on to break down each component – just in case you aren’t sure what they mean by ‘hot’, ‘cool’, and ‘yours’. But the best part is this:
“The dot after each word draws a parallel with high technologies (.ru) and the emblem of the Winter Games in Sochi.”
Erm, okay. Another indication of how progressive the host country is then.
In the organising committee’s defence, coming up with an Olympic Games slogan is an extremely tough nut to crack. Nothing is subject to more intense scrutiny than the Olympics and Paralympics – as media coverage in the run-up to Sochi 2014 has (rightly) shown.
But I think this slogan is symptomatic of a wider, global problem – one that I’ve come across many times in my experiences of translation.
All too often, non-native speakers think you can simply string together a few English words to make a great slogan. Buzz words like ‘your’ and ‘yours’ are used a lot to make something sound personal, but come off sounding a little forced and creepy.
And this has been going on for some time. A 2004 study by Hanover University revealed that the words most used in German advertising were: wir (meaning ‘we’), Sie (‘you’), mehr (‘more’), Leben (‘life’) and the English word ‘your’. I’d bet that ‘your’ has moved up a few places since then too.
I’ve no doubt that, to the average Russian, the slogan ‘Hot. Cool. Yours’ sounds pretty, well, cool. But sadly, to us native speakers it just sounds pretty, well, rubbish.
Great piece, Kathryn!
ReplyDeleteI think you are very right, that translation (or localisation) hasn't done this slogan justice. The 'Hot' and 'Cool' are certainly references to the weird geography of Sochi 2014 - the subtropical coastal location of the ice venues, compared to the snow-bound wintry mountain venues. Without that knowledge, the English slogan implies something more like flu symptoms.
The 'Yours' bit, I think, is an attempt to capture the 'Everyone's Games' ethos which worked so well in London 2012. But it sounds startling in the context of the other two words.
This is definitely a case of a committee trying to pack too much messaging into a slogan, and not thinking enough about translation. For London, we avoided that problem by not translating the Games slogan at all - something Russia couldn't get away with.
'An old colleague' :-)
Thanks Morag - and for bringing this to my attention some time ago! You're a wise old colleague :-)
ReplyDelete