We speak English

The phone book is full of ads and I would like to try to draw some attention away from my competitors with this statement.

People still use phone books? Ours goes straight to the recycling bin.

I kinda liked the suggestion...

"and ... yes ... WE DO SPEAK ENGLISH!"

BTW, I'm in Sachse. There seem to be several on this thread from the Dallas area.

Read this. Then forget the whole idea. Unless you love controversy.......

Gardener ad plants controversy

BAKERSFIELD - A local man is speaking out about an ad he placed for his gardening in the Californian, after he got some readers upset readers.

He is simply saying, “It's not personal, it's just business.”

But some in the Hispanic community like Lou Gomez the President of the Hispanic Chamber of commerce are calling the ad racist.

“You know, it sounds very racist to me. It just opens up a can of worms,” Gomez said.

The two-inch ad in question was published at the bottom of Wednesday's home and garden section, and reads: ’having problems communicating with your current gardener?--Talk to us, we're English speaking.

KGET-TV attempted to talk to the business posted on the ad, and a man named John answered. John declined to give his last name and go on camera, but said over the phone that the ad speaks for itself, that he's simply trying to compete.

Some readers agree while others disagree. Angie White says she’s had communication problems in the past.

“Well, in the same way that you're able to say you cater, that you advertise that you do speak Spanish, why can't you advertise to English speaking customers as well,” White said.

But Alicia Gonzalez is upset over the ad.

“It doesn't directly indicate a race, but I think it's pretty clear what they are trying to insinuate, so I just think that it's insensitive,” Gonzalez said.

Though some say communication problems are a real issue, others say pointing the finger at minorities isn't fair.

German has a harder initial hurdle than English. But once you started, it has fewer landmines than English has which will trip you. For instance, how do we explain why we say "Belarus" but "the Ukraine", or "an egg" but "a European".

And logically why we use present perfect tense instead of past simple when the event happened completely in the past? Or why there seems to be no unified logic behind wehen to use in, on, at? In contrast, German seems to be far mroe uniform and mroe organized in grammar.

Although compound words like Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz are nightmares to memorize. ;-)

German has a harder initial hurdle than English. But once you started, it has fewer landmines than English has which will trip you. For instance, how do we explain why we say "Belarus" but "the Ukraine", or "an egg" but "a European".

And logically why we use present perfect tense instead of past simple when the event happened completely in the past? Or why there seems to be no unified logic behind wehen to use in, on, at? In contrast, German seems to be far mroe uniform and mroe organized in grammar.

Although it is a nightmare to remember how to spell compound words like Rindfleischetikettierungsüberwachungsaufgabenübertragungsgesetz. ;-)

May I suggest holding a focus group or two? It's a tried and true business approach to test out a new advertising campaign. Simply ask people what they would think if they saw a business in your industry stating that they spoke English.

I think you should bounce the idea off of your customers before jumping headlong into a new ad campaign.

JMHO

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