Answering customer pain points / Most of us will at some point have encountered the wordy legal jargon that renders simple information complex and unintelligible, which gives The Contract Translator a universal appeal. By framing legalese and colloquial language as binary opposites, Reclame Aqui empathises with and highlights the plight of the average consumer who struggles to make sense of documents written in legal language. But rather than just acknowledging the problem, the brand makes use of the data at its disposal (in this case, consumer complaints about misleading contracts) and responds with a practical solution.
Lots of apps, from Google Translate to Word Lens, already exist to make it possible to translate language in real time from images. But by demystifying legal jargon, rather than just offering the Spanish for ‘two beers, please’ Reclame Aqui democratises the consumer-corporation relationship. Beyond ingratiating itself with consumers this tool positions the organisation as an accessible and authoritative source of reliable information and solutions.
Staying on brand / This initiative makes sense for a brand like Reclame Aqui, which has a history of challenging the status quo, whether it’s campaigning for politicians to surrender their spare air miles to taxpayers, highlighting corruption or protesting poor customer service. As a consumer complaints body, it’s important for Reclame Aqui to live up to its reputation as an accountable and impartial organisation that upholds the values of its consumers. While past initiatives have taken a more direct approach (publicly calling out politicians or campaigning for legislative changes), The Contract Translator is less explicit in its efforts to democratise and educate. Described in the case study video as ‘a weapon against big corporations’, the app equips users with the tools to decipher complicated legal language and levels the playing field between consumers and big corporations. By reducing a 10 page document into a single page of simple terms, Reclame Aqui neatly exposes legalese for what it really is: an unnecessarily wordy, indirect and technical form of legal language that corporations can (and do) use to both distance and protect themselves from their customers.
