The Measurement Game, Metric or American?

Ever since I started working at ICD, I have been obsessed with reading translated labels on packaging and instruction manuals. Recently, I bought a lock for my bicycle, and I noticed the measurements on the packaging were Metric (American) 12.7 cm (5") on the English section and American (Metric) 5" (12.7 cm) on the Spanish section. I found this odd because most countries outside the US use Metric measurements, and if this packaging was geared towards South America (assuming the Spanish was geared towards South America, and the company also used it for US consumers since it was at Target) then the measurements in the English section should remain the same in Spanish or the American measurements deleted completely.

After thinking about it for a while, I realized that the packaging could have been specifically localized for Spanish reading people in the US, and since we use American measurements instead of Metric it was logical to use the American measurements first, but why was it in Metric first in the English section? The only reason I came up with was that they probably wrote the English section localized-ready for any market, but decided to switch the measurements for packaging in the US. This is a very important consideration and this manufacturer considered it's Spanish reading consumers in the US.

Most manufacturers have a hard time choosing what unit of measurement to use for different markets. Do you want to use bilingual packaging like the example above for the US market only, or do you want to use it for the rest of the world? In most cases ICD has advised their clients to standardize their measurements: American (Metric) for the US market and metric only for the rest of the world. However, discrepancies have occurred when bi, tri, or quad lingual packaging was used. Then, the question of consistency in all languages needs to be addressed. Whatever you decide to choose, just remember what markets you are using it in, and what unit of measurement is most applicable for your consumer. Consistency, accurate conversions, and ease of localization are the key factors in the measurement game.