Walk through any town in Friesland and you’ll see something weird happening on billboards, shop windows, and bus stops. The ads are having an identity crisis.
Some are in Dutch. Some are in Frisian. Some are awkwardly trying to be both.
And the brands behind them are making calculated bets about which language will actually make you buy their stuff.
This is the strange world of Frisian advertising, where every marketing campaign becomes a political statement whether companies want it to be or not.
Here’s the thing. Friesland has about 640,000 people. Roughly 55% of them speak Frisian. That’s a decent chunk, but it’s not everybody.
So if you’re a business trying to sell something, you’ve got a choice. Advertise in Dutch and reach everyone but feel kind of generic. Or advertise in Frisian and create an emotional connection with the people who actually live there, but potentially confuse tourists and non-Frisian speakers.
Local businesses figured this out decades ago. The bakery uses Frisian. The butcher uses Frisian. The little café on the corner definitely uses Frisian.
They’re not trying to reach all of the Netherlands. They’re trying to reach their neighbors. And their neighbors respond to “Komme jimme ris lâns” way better than “Kom eens langs.”
But big national brands? That’s where it gets complicated.
Some companies have tried going full Frisian in their Friesland campaigns. Supermarket chains sometimes run Frisian slogans on local billboards. Regional banks plaster Frisian all over their branches in Leeuwarden.
And it works. Studies have shown that people trust brands more when they speak their language. Literally.
There’s something about seeing your minority language on a professional advertisement that hits different. It says, “We see you. We know who you are. We’re not just another Dutch company trying to sell you stuff.”
But then you’ve got the other side. Big international brands that wouldn’t know Frisian if it walked up and introduced itself.
They stick with Dutch or English. They’re playing it safe. They figure Frisians all speak Dutch anyway, so why bother?
And they’re not wrong. Frisians do speak Dutch. But they’re missing the point.
The insurance company that runs Frisian radio ads isn’t doing it because Frisians can’t understand Dutch. They’re doing it because hearing “forsekering” instead of “verzekering” makes people feel something.
It makes them feel seen.
Social media has made this even weirder. Local influencers post in Frisian and get insane engagement rates. Companies are starting to notice.
There’s a whole micro-economy of Frisian-language content creators who brands are desperately trying to partner with. Because a 20-year-old posting about your product in Frisian on TikTok will reach young Frisian speakers way better than any Dutch billboard ever could.
The government’s been pushing this too. They offer subsidies and support for businesses that commit to using Frisian. Not just in advertising, but in customer service, signage, packaging, everything.
Some businesses have embraced it completely. Walk into certain stores in Friesland and the staff greets you in Frisian first. The receipts have Frisian on them. The loyalty program sends you emails in Frisian.
It’s not just feel-good cultural preservation. It’s smart business. These companies report higher customer loyalty and better local reputation.
But here’s the uncomfortable truth. Most big brands still don’t bother.
They’ll spend millions on market research and ad campaigns, but they won’t spend a few thousand getting their slogans properly translated into Frisian. It’s seen as too niche, too complicated, too risky.
What they don’t realize is that Frisians notice. They notice when a company makes the effort. And they really notice when they don’t.
The brands that get it right don’t just slap a Frisian translation on their Dutch ad and call it a day. They actually create campaigns that speak to Frisian culture, Frisian humor, Frisian identity.
They hire Frisian copywriters. They test their slogans with actual Frisian speakers. They understand that you can’t just run everything through Google Translate and hope for the best.
Because at the end of the day, advertising in Frisian isn’t really about language. It’s about respect.
It’s about telling 350,000 Frisian speakers that their language matters enough to be taken seriously. Not just in folk songs and poetry, but in the everyday world of commerce and business.
And slowly, more brands are figuring that out.
