Sorry to be MIA on the blogging. We were in a pitch at work. I can now safely say that pitches are the same everywhere. Long, late hours, junk food, last minute freak outs and printer worries. And I can also safely say that you feel exactly the same after an all-nighter in Sweden that you do in San Francisco - freakin' tired. There are some serious pitch warriors here in the DDB Stockholm studio department. Thanks guys.
One fun difference about this pitch was that I got to help translate all of the Swedish copy to English. There were going to be some non-Swedes from the company in the meeting so most of the presentation was to be given in English. Translating Swedish to English is not always and easy task (but it is always funny), and sometimes there really isn't a direct translation or there are major differences in the way the words are used. For instance, the Swedish word skepparkrans means this certain type of beard that fishermen often have. When literally translated to English in pieces it means ship wreath. Hmmmm. Not exactly catchy ad copy. We ended up just saying fisherman's beard.
Also, we came up with a headline in English with the phrase "taking the scenic route" in it. And there was really no equally good way to translate it into Swedish. Apparently "taking the scenic route" is a pretty American concept? Maybe in Sweden taking the scenic route is an inefficient way to get from point A to point B in the cold or maybe they feel that every route is the scenic route? I'm not sure. Maybe I should ask if "stopping to smell the roses" translates.
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