Indonesia Journey

When a grammatical mistake was spotted in Indonesia's tourism slogan, I felt a little forgiving towards the person responsible, given the task of thinking it up. I am not trying to make excuses; I think we must admit English is one of the most complicated languages in the world.

In fact it is not only the grammar, but pronunciation, spelling and vocabulary that are also hurdles to mastering English. These hurdles are not just challenging for us who were not born as native English speakers, but also for those who were "lucky enough" to be born and educated in an English-speaking environment. Believe me, they frequently make mistakes too.

Hopefully the lesson from the grammatical mistake in our slogan will be that in the future our tourism slogans will only contain words which are warm, not gimmicky, and most importantly, eye-catching. A slogan such as "Explore the chain of islands, explore Indonesia" could be considered a more powerful and captivating slogan.

Some of you might wonder why I chose "the chain of islands" instead of "archipelago". The answer is because "archipelago" is a "big" and "gimmicky" word. I doubt if the average native English speaker knows the true meaning of the word. We must also remember that the native language of a reader of the English version of the slogan may not be a native English speaker anyway.

In fact, using "simple" and "unsophisticated" words is fundamental for the success of any campaign which targets a mass audience. For example, the most famous political slogan in British political history, which brought Margaret Thatcher and the Conservative Party to power, was indeed very easy to grasp: "Labor isn't working".

Not only was it a blow to the Labor Party, most importantly it did not require a triple digit IQ to understand. The slogan was very simply constructed using words understood by everybody. At the same time, it had a powerful message, and left a strong impression on the voters.

Another example is in the media. The Sun, published in the UK and the Republic of Ireland, has the highest circulation of any English-language daily newspaper worldwide. Some of you who are familiar with the content of the paper might cheekily smile. However, it is a perfect example that simple and unsophisticated sentences and words sell.

If you pay attention to the content of The Sun, it is easy to notice that most of the sentences are very short compared to other English language newspapers. There is never a "big" word if a simpler one exists. In fact there is a rather condescending saying amongst readers of more sophisticated British papers: "You'll seldom find a word longer than "Wednesday" in The Sun." Indeed, it seems the editors and contributors do indeed go to great lengths to avoid any word longer than nine letters.

What we can draw from both examples is that, in order to grab the attention of mass audiences, it is necessary to appeal to everyone. Like any political speech to a nation, it must be universally understood, either by a businessman in New York or a very simple person in Timbuktu.

Given that those who create political and marketing slogans for English-language readers use simple and very easily understood phrases, why do we have to be pretentious and come up with a "sophisticated" but boring sentence?

If we want to show our cultural diversity to foreigners, then probably "Discover spicy Indonesia" would be a better slogan. "Spicy" is a general term for mixed spices, and it could be seen as a metaphor of our mixed background as a nation. It can also have deeper meanings, as in "Variety is the spice of life", allowing people to interpret it well beyond food.

If we want to attract foreigners to our breathtaking natural beauty, then "Explore a chain of islands, explore Indonesia" would probably be more effective in making an impression. "Explore" is a simple word that everybody knows, "chain of islands" sounds intriguing, and the word "island" itself could give an idea of beauty and serenity.

"Simple but smart" should definitely be born in mind when we create future tourism slogans, not "smart but boring and pretentious".