Norweigan recycle company advertises in Urdu!

Norway has understood what adapting a campaign to the target market really means. Norsk Resirk target market for the campaign that encourages recycling is "the entire population of Norway". Enter a clever media buyer working at an equally clever agency and you have ads adapted for where they are actually placed - common ad sense that is far too often overlooked or ignored.

During the Pakistani culture festival Mela in Oslo the recycling company advertised with a full page advert written in Urdu.

Synnøve Castillano, information executive at Norsk Resirk says that the response has been overwhelmingly positive, and doesn't think excluding the Norweigan language on the poster meant it excluded Norweigans from receiving the message: "The recycle logo is so well known that anyone would have gotten the message".

The ad was printed in the daily newspaper the day before the festival started. The main problem with creating this ad was finding a word equal to the norweigan word pant which doesn''t exist in Urdu and many other languages. Pant is both the redemption and the deposit in one word - so in the end the Urdu ad reads: "Cans and bottles can always be recycled. Get money back from all soda selling shops by returning your used cans and bottles. Always."