Don’t behave like an animal on public transit

Posted by Tom Megginson | 28-09-2011 18:26 | Category: Culture

It’s true: poetry doesn’t translate. Especially awkward PSA poetry.

This courtesy campaign reminds transit riders in Paris to act like human beings. Cute idea, if a little furry. But a comparison of the international version above (these are usually produced for adblogs and awards shows) with the original French (found here) shows the loss in translation:

The original version is from the client site. (Isn’t it funny how the annoying superimposed mouse type disappeared from the “non-client” versions?) See all of the ads (in both English and French) after the break.

Advertiser:
Régie Autonome des Transports Parisiens
Agency:
Publicis Conseil, France
Additional credits:
reative Director: Hervé Riffault
Copywriter: Olivier Dermaux
Art Director: Mathieu Vinciguerra
Assistant Art Director: Mélanie Pennec
Managing Director: Jean-Patrick Chiquiar
Client Service Director: Laurence Neveu
Account team: Emmanuelle Henry / Elodie Chicheportiche
Planner: Barberine Reyners
Production: Patricia Denis du Péage
Illustrator: Mr Remi / Mr Hyde
Photographer: Benoît Mauduech
3D: Hervé Lopez / M. Hyde
Head of art: Jean-Luc Chirio
Production: Elysian Field
Source:
Ads of The World

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Comments

The RATP has a long history of literary PSAs, borrowing from French authors and subverting well-known texts in an amusing way. Alas, this campaign falls very short in that regard and the English translations are sometimes much better than the French originals.

This is an extension of an original campaign using the Metro (round) and Bus (square) line numbers to highlight little-known but interesting stats about service quality and customer satisfaction. That worked OK in the original context but it’s totally lost now that the posters no longer have any link with the line numbers they display…

Posted by François Joseph | 28-09-2011 19:28

Thank you, François. Very helpful insight.

Posted by Tom Megginson | 28-09-2011 19:47

Did I miss one with people eating on transit?  really, that nasty habit has got to go.

Posted by Brenda Montgomery | 29-03-2012 22:08

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