All Posts

Richard Linklater’s Nouvelle Vague is an exciting movie about the birth of the French New Wave cinema spearheaded by a bunch of contributors of Les cahiers du cinéma who went on to revolutionise cinema, until Hollywood took notice.  It follows Jean-Luc Godard filming Breathless (À bout de souffle), in a chaotic but always single-minded way of redefining movie-making in its entirety. Tarantino named his production company Bande à part after another Godard’s movie from 1964. He

France is the second market for mangas in the world, and as soon as a new manga is published in Japan, hundreds of teams of fanatics scan and translate it into French. They are called scantraders (scan+translation), are all passionate volunteers, and work in clandestine conditions via Discord, just because they love the genre. They put their version online after hours of work and checks. If the manga is officially published, they delete their version and redirect the readers

Something bad is happening to global advertising; it’s going backwards. In the 80s, global advertising campaigns used to be translated either by translators or within agencies by people who were not always equipped to do so.  I used to work for JWT Paris, and I was in charge of several clients who needed transcreation into French. When the job came to an end. I decided to offer the same service in London. The British music scene was a major factor in my decision, as well as t

Would you hire a translator to write your ads? As an ECD you wouldn’t even think about it. But you do.  From the moment your campaigns cross borders, most ECDs leave it to various managers who leave it to various companies/agencies who leave it to various translators to manage their campaigns on the international stage. Baffling? That’s actually what you observe when you look at the background of the employees of the companies that provide language services to advertising age

In the latest Jim Jarmusch’s film Father Mother Sister Brother, there is apparently a British idiom in the dialogue used again and again: "And Bob’s your uncle".  I haven’t seen the movie, but listening to a critic on France Inter, they reported that this expression was translated literally in the French subtitles by: “...et Robert est votre oncle”.  Ridiculous? The perfect transcreation should have been: “...et le tour est joué”, or more simply: “...et voilà”. I often have m

Pope Leo IX, who is North American, visited Lebanon in December 2025 and gave his speech in French. The French-speaking world is wider than some people think. The influence of French is enormous, far-reaching, and is spoken in places you may not suspect. That crucial fact ought to be taken more seriously, especially in advertising. I first came to the UK because I was hired by Guinness Brewing Worldwide, as Guinness was known at the time. Their agency, Grandfield Rork Collins

Did you know that there are more  Le Pain Quotidien  outlets in Manhattan than  McDonald's ? And when they are visualised on  Google  Maps, a croissant icon appears. So, why does  Hulu  translate croissants as coffees in their subtitles? It occurred when I was watching The Lost Station Girls, a French true crime television series about a twenty-year police investigation into the murders of four young women in the vicinity of the Perpignan train station, in the South West of F

That’s what I hear day in, day out on the French national radio, France Inter. What does it tell you? That even educated, media-savvy people in France cannot speak English, even at the most basic level.  It is a subject of constant banter and jokes among presenters on the station. Personally, it makes me cringe, and I cannot understand why on a national radio, the standards are so low.  Actually, only 28% of French people can speak English. So, why do global brands insist on

Last November 2025, Pope Leo IX, who is North American, visited Lebanon and gave his speech in French. The French-speaking world is wider than some people think. The influence of French is enormous, far-reaching, and is spoken in places you may not suspect. That crucial fact ought to be taken more seriously, especially in advertising. I first came to the UK because I was hired by Guinness Brewing Worldwide, as Guinness was known at the time. Their agency, Grandfield Rork Col

Because if your visuals don’t match your target market, forget it. Your transcreator, or translator, can always do a good job with your copy; if the visuals still betray where it originates from, they haven’t. It’s been a waste of your time and money. And the vast majority of them won’t even see the issue. What you really need is a consultant in French advertising. Sorry, Ken, but barbecues with burgers? The French eat merguez and lamb kebabs (and yes, even though France is t

Ask Cara, Poppy, and Chloe Delevingne. The Celebrity sisters are the co-founders of vegan prosecco brand Della Vite. Unfortunately for them, the advertising campaign they’ve devised has triggered a furious response from the Comité de Champagne. The Comité is the official representative of the Champagne producers' interests, and more precisely the use of the appellation Champagne. For them, it’s simple: if you are not an official producer of champagne, you just cannot use the

Whether you’ve been a Sex Pistol or still a creative in the advertising industry (and a punk rocker), getting old has become a huge issue. I have too much experience. Should I shave some years off my CV to fit your idea of the ideal candidate? Do the words pioneer, first ever, skills, extensive experience, 100s of brands spell red flags to you? It’s an upside-down world where the young are tasked to recruit the old with all the ignorance and prejudice to go with it. And I’m s

The French Revolution was a bloody affair, only confirmed by the gory spectacle we witnessed in the Olympic Games opening ceremony. You may think we would be over the Ancien Régime and the abolition of privileges would put us off its most extravagant and scandalous excesses. Pas du tout ! The Château de Versailles boasted 8,4 million visitors in 2024, Buckingham Palace only 647,000. It is the subject of numerous films and TV series, and Marie-Antoinette stars in a new exhibit

Why? Because it is the most effective way to speak to the Spanish-speaking audience living, working, and travelling in New York. Effectiveness is the keyword here. So why in the Paris métro and everywhere else in France, many ads appear with a global tagline in English when only a quarter of the French population speaks it? US advertisers understand something fundamental in advertising in their own territory that seems to elude them when it comes to advertising in France. To

Young people going to universities in France can no longer write meaningful sentences without any gross grammatical mistakes. That’s the observation made by French professors Aude Denizot in her new book “Pourquoi nos étudiants ne savent plus écrire ?” (Why our students no longer know how to write?”), and J.P. Brighelli with his best-selling book “La fabrique du crétin” (Manufacture of a cretin). French grammar is notoriously complex and full of inconsistencies. But that’s wh

“Go for it égal lancez-vous”, “Mood égal humeur”, these are the last lines of a current radio spot for Basic-Fit on the French radio....

The Weekend Guardian Magazine published an article by Cass Sunstein titled Why we need a right not to be manipulated, subtitled...

Matty Matheson - Soups, Salads, Sandwiches A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of meeting Matty Matheson, the chef made famous by The...

The largest cinema in the world, UGC Ciné Cité , has just celebrated 30 years in Les Halles in the heart of Paris. It boasts 27 screens,...

This is Thierry Henry starring in the French version of Shark Ninja 's Summer of Sports ad video. It also stars Peter Crouch . How do...