What You Need to Know About Marketing & Advertising Translation

When it comes to translation, the marketing of an idea, product or service is normally carried out using a technique called transcreation.

When considering the translation of marketing and advertising content for your business, it is important to be aware of how to do it right and what it entails. Translating these materials  can be much more complex than common text translation and should be done through transcreation.

What is Transcreation?

Transcreation is a process by which new content is developed or adapted for a given target market instead of directly translating of the original content. Transcreation helps businesses expand to markets around the world by using accurate communications in the native language to strengthen trust and partnership and create a bond between businesses and customers.

What is needed to do Transcreation?

• Experienced translators & native speakers
Translators that handle transcreations must be highly experienced and native speakers of the target language. This ensures that they have a deep understanding of the language as well as the local cultures. They will be able to determine if it is best to use the local dialect, sayings, slang or regionalisms when writing text.

• In depth market research
It is vital to research which market you are trying to reach as well as understand details like cultural taboos or preferences in order to avoid communication blunders. Research on the market and culture will also aid in selecting the appropriate colors, images, fonts and other important details that need to be adapted for a specific culture. For example, color selection is very important when it comes to advertisements. It is not only important to choose colors which are visually appealing, but also understand how people of the targeted culture respond to them. The idea is to choose colors that will be positively received by your audience. For example, in the western world, the color white is used for weddings but in several other cultures such as in Chinese culture, the color white is traditionally the color of mourning. Therefore, you wouldn’t want to have images of people in white clothing in an advertisement for a festive social gathering directed at the general Chinese audience. Research on each culture and tests are highly recommended.

• Creativity
For marketing and advertising translation, often experience in copywriting or creative writing is required. The idea is to produce new content in the desired target language with the goal for the audience to elicit similar reactions and results as the audience produced when approached with the original text and content. For example, this is especially needed to translate and produce advertisements that are supposed to be humorous for its audience. Often times, using the same content and images for target audiences of very different cultures would not be appealing to audiences as cultures interpret humor in various ways. A rather profound understanding of a culture is required to know what is humorous or entertaining.

With transcreation you are able to capture the target audience by relating to them in an impactful and emotional manner, creating a more effective means of communication. Thus, when in need of marketing and advertising translation services, remember to specifically request for transcreation services.