A few Blog entries ago, I told the tale of my family's seemingly endless search for a nice place to live.

Our current place is pretty sweet.  We have the upstairs of a nice duplex with enough room for us and our stuff.

We also have neighbors.  Very nice Thai neighbors, an older couple and their 20-something year old son, who speak very little English.

Again, my Thai neighbors are very nice people, but the language and cultural barrier creates some interesting situations.

And scents.

Thai cuisine packs a powerful olfactory punch.  Powerful enough to where we warn guests that they will smell some pretty funky stuff on their way up to our apartment.  On particularly funky days, we burn a significant amount of incense.

A little more than that.

No.  More.

Yep, that's about right.

One day, Anj was putting some stuff in our outdoor storage unit when the mother approached her and, through a series of gestures and a little English, asked Anj to help her move some buckets.  Anj, being the kindly soul that she is, obliged and lifted what ended up being some VERY heavy buckets to the indicated location.

Once the buckets were moved, the mother motioned Anj closer then pointed towards the buckets and said, "Sauce."  Anj nodded and the mother, in an effort to clairfy what she meant, lifted the lid off of one of the buckets where Anj saw what can best be described as chum.

And by chum, I mean fish guts.

The smell was apocalyptic.  The mother smiles, says "In 2 year, sauce," then puts the lid back on the bucket.

In 2 years, we're gonna need a lot more incense.

About 2 weeks later, our neighbors were cooking something that smelled like 100% Grade-A awesome.  The smell was intoxicatingly good.  As we were headed out for the day, we passed our neighbor in the shared entrance.  She had her door propped open and was fanning out the smell.  When she saw us, she apologetically said, "Smell, oof." and held her nose.

Cultural differences, you know?

Here's the part where I tie my story into advertising.

"Aw, not again."

If you own a business, your culture "behind the counter" is different than the culture on the other side of the counter.  You know, where the customers are. 

I know you have a lot of stuff that's important to your culture.  I know you want to talk about it in your ad, but if that stuff doesn't mean jack-squat to your potential customers, well...

One person's sauce is another's bucket of chum.

Luckily, our team of marketing pros can help you tell the difference.  Call 842-1672 and ask for Bob Young.

Be Cool,

TS