Is this translation odd?

Question

Hi,Do you find the bold sentence odd? (I translated it from Vietnamese and wonder if native speakers ever say things like that )"Besides, there are other specialised retail models in Vietnam such as Nguy?n Kim, Best Caring, Vi?n Thông A... This may be a possible tendency to cope with intense competition, because the specialisation itself defines their customer bases. For example, those who come to Nguy?n Kim obviously want to buy electric household appliances. Specialisation will help to form the portrait of target customers"By the way, have you ever heard of 'hour G' or 'G hour'? that term is very commonly used in Vietnamese to mean the high time for something to be done. I'm afraid I can't express myself very well, so please have a look at this paragraph (which I translated from Vietnamese) to better understanding of the word:"Retail Chain Marketing - Here comes the G hour.On the first of January, 2009, according to the undertaking of Vietnam when joing the WTO, foreign businesses have been allowed to enter the retail market. With the pressure of competition, retailers must create the advantage to remain and develop. Marketing is an important factor to create that advantage.This is a big challenge for domestic retailers. And how have they prepared to compete with these International rivals?"It simply means that now foreign retailers are allowed to do business in Vietnam and so it's high time for domestic retailers to have a preparation for competition. But can say 'here comes the hour G' like that? If not, can I use 'here comes the prime time instead'? And if not either, then what can I say?Thank you very much,Nessie.

Avangi · Accepted Answer

<< Specialisation will help to form the portrait of target customers >>

Not sure exactly what you mean. "Portrait" or even "profile" implies that your purpose is to accurately describe the existing characteristics of individual existing customers.

Do you mean "portrait of the typical target customer"?

Are you targeting customers before or after they become aware of your specialization?

By "form the portrait of the customer" do you really mean that a perception of the specialization will select the clientele and predetermine the nature of the typical customer? - automatically?

You can see how confused I am - probably because I'm not in marketing. Perhaps a marketer would know exactly what you mean.

The thing that throws me off is that I should think the "target" would be primary. I should think you would start with the portrait of the target customer, and build the specialization around that.

Or is the specialization primary? You then decide what your typical target customer will look like to suit your specialization?

Is this just an intellectual process, setting up your business model, or is it something you're trying to do to your customers, attempting to influence their buying habits?? That is, are you trying to "form" (mold) your customers, or "form" (mold) your target?

You can see how many interpretations I can place on your phrase.

So you're really saying, "Once I know what my company's specialization is, the next step is to try to form a profile of the typical consumer who would be my best customer. This will be my target customer. The next step after that is to formulate a strategy on how to target my advertising toward this person.

I'm not familiar with "G-hour," is it like "zero-hour?" 'The zero hour is here!" "The time is now." "It's time for us to get moving - go into action."

"Prime time" has a special meaning. It's the time of the day when TV shows can earn the most money.

Our product specialization will determine the customer we must target. We must carefully match his profile to fit the details of our product line. (Something like that?) I feel you sentence is too condensed to mean anything to someone who is not already fully conversant with the concept.

CalifJim · Answer

Specialisation will help to form the portrait of target customers.

I'd write:

Specialisation will help form a profile of target customers.

(although I don't understand the subject you're discussing well enough to understand how that is true.)
____

Retail Chain Marketing - Here comes the G hour.

I'd write:

Retail Chain Marketing -- The Time for Action Has Come

(G hour has no associations for English speakers.)

However, if you are comfortable comparing the situation to one which occurred in World War II, you could write:

D-Day for Retail Chain Marketing

or

Retail Chain Marketing -- D-Day is Upon Us (or D-Day Has Come)

CJ

Nessie000 · Answer

Hi Avangi and Calif

Thank you very much for your ideas. About the 'G-hour', I think both of you are right (I mean, both 'zero hour' and 'D-Day' can be used to express my idea in this case), but I suppose 'zero hour' is more exact.
It's all right that you don't understand my idea very well in "Specialisation will help to form the portrait of target customers", because you're not marketers

Let me try to explain: nowadays there are many kinds of retail chains - markets, supermarkets, handy shops, etc. Some of these retail chains don't have a very wide range of goods but they just focus on a certain kind of goods. For example the retail chain Nguyen Kim in my country just sells electronic household appliances. This is thespecification. Meanwhile, in marketing there is the term 'target customers'. This is defined in the Longman Business English Dictionary as 'the type of person that you aim to sell your products or services to. For example, McDonald may have many types of customers - old people, middle-class people, children, etc. However they have what they call 'target customers', who are mostly teenagers (who like fast food) or people who go to work and may be too busy to cook (so they have fast food instead). 'target customers' do not refer to many individual customers buta group of aimed customers. Therefore, when I say "Specialisation will help to form the portrait of target customers", I mean as that aforementioned retail chain Nguyen Kim just sells electronic household appliances - they have specialisation, and so that specialisation helps to form the portrait of target customers; that means the specialisation helps us know its target customers - those who want to buy electronic household appliances (housewives, for example)
Have I made myself clear enough?

Avangi · Answer

That's about the way I assumed you were using your terms.

I think "profile" is the more accepted term for the description of the typical consumer you hope to make your customer.

One of the problems I've had from the beginning with your sentence is that it doesn't say who is doing the "forming." In describing a process, or procedure, of course the action is the main thing; but we also like to know who the actors are.

These days the computer is often the actor, but we like to know who is telling the computer what to do. Your sentence makes it sound like "specialization" is the actor.

As I tried to explain before, the sentence is too condensed. Sometimes more words are required to make a thing clear. Of course if the person this is addressed to already knows these facts, he'll know what you mean, and it doesn't matter whether or not your sentence makes sense.

To lean to the other extreme, I would say, "We will use the product specialization of the retailer as the chief tool in constructing / creating a profile of the target customer." "Forming" is a very weak action word, and is very misleading in your sentence, IMHO. It sounds like something which takes place gradually over a long period of time. I should think on the other hand that this portrait / profile would be one of the first jobs you'd need to get done before any advertising campaign could begin. "Forming a portrait" sounds like you're pussyfooting.
Good luck with your project.

- A.

Is this translation odd?

Top answer

Get the Weekly English Kit 📬

Related Questions