Butchered Brand Slogans Appear on Mobile Billboards Across London

May. 02, 2024

Creative translation agency franklyfluent has launched "Hard to Make, Easy to Break", an outdoor guerilla and digital campaign showcasing how important creativity and craft are when it comes to brand translation.

This week, mobile billboards have been strategically placed across London sporting deliberately bad rewrites of iconic brand slogans from Nike, Kellogg’s, B&Q, KFC, KitKat and Maybelline. All with the same sentiment, but minus the magic and sparkle of the original brand line.

"Hard to Make, Easy to Break" is a celebration of great brand writing, spotlighting the skill it takes to create a timeless, resonant and memorable slogan.

To shine an even brighter light on the issue, franklyfluent has created a website showcasing the "broken" slogans, and revealing the untold stories behind the original lines: https://greatbrandlines.co/, the QR code of which is on the back of each van for curious observers to head to.

Catherine Barr, Co-Founder, franklyfluent said:

"More than ever brands need to cross borders. But translating creative copy is about more than getting the meaning right. It’s about capturing the texture and tone of the work in a way that resonates with local audiences. Get it wrong, and you end up with copy like the ‘broken’ slogans at the centre of our campaign – that says what you meant to say, but not how you meant to say it. It’s something we wanted to bring to life for everyone, whether or not they speak another language."