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RE: Question for writers in New Zealand and Australia
Subject:RE: Question for writers in New Zealand and Australia From:Stuart Burnfield <slb -at- westnet -dot- com -dot- au> To:Techwr-l <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Wed, 22 Feb 2012 14:19:58 +0800 (WST)
The sporting rivalry is sometimes fierce. New Zealanders are understandably peeved when we (Australians) claim successful NZ actors, comedians, bands, etc, as our own. Apart from that Aussies and Kiwis get on very well. There's no national animosity.
But... I still think they would be quite sensitive to the appearance of being lumped in as an afterthought. Many NZers might not notice, many might not care, but there's still likely to be a fair number who go to select their country name under 'N' and then roll their eyes and mutter when they find it under 'A'.
If your company had no offices or agents in NZ, it might make sense to combine them given that customers are going to be funneled to someone in Australia anyway. Yet from your website is looks like there are partners and resellers in NZ.
As Reshma says, the alphabetical dropdown list of countries on your website works perfectly well in the conventional way. What's the advantage to this new scheme that makes it worth possibly annoying some customers?
Personally I find the lowercase country names slightly irritating, but if that's how they all must be, australia/new zealand would make me feel like less of an afterthought than australia/nz.
Another option is to use a regional name such as Australasia or Oceania. These aren't definitive, but are usually taken to mean "Australia, New Zealand, SW-Pacific island nations and maybe New Guinea too." This way you're not excluding potential customers in the same region. Without knowing the context it's hard to say if this would suit your needs.
Cheers,
Stuart
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