The Marketeer in Arabia

When teaching a new session yesterday, I had to run an exercise that would bring out the Platinum Rule. I somehow got the feeling that it might be difficult to bring that learning out. I decided to keep a trick up my sleeve, which I eventually used. It was this story that I told of a marketeer who was to design an ad campaign for a soft drink in an Arabian country. He decided to design the ad campaign as a story he told in pictures. See below:

Arab and his camel, walking tired in the desert	Arab and his camel drinking the cola	Arab, camel and sun happy and now at an oasis

Now, the marketeer was obviously pleased with his brilliant effort and expected his sales to treble. So he waited for the figures to come in and to his utter dismay his sales had reduced by half.

What had gone wrong?
Arabians read from right to left!! (Try seeing what that does!)

Whats the moral of the story?
The meaning of your communication is the response you get!
Platinum Rule: Communicate with others as they would like you to communicate with them! :-D