Globalization has allowed many businesses to reach out to wider audiences. The largest companies now have customers in several countries and many business owners will tell you that there is only so much you can accomplish by limiting yourself to a national market. Reaching out to an international audience comes with its unique challenges, including the language barrier but also a cultural divide.
There are many humorous stories about marketers failing to do enough research about the culture of the country where they are launching a new campaign. For instance, Honda released its Honda Fitta in Scandinavian countries without realizing they were advertising a car named after a slang term used to refer to the female anatomy. The Honda Fitta quickly became the Honda Jazz but not before Nordic customers had a good laugh.
Intel avoided a costly mistake by changing their “Sponsors Of Tomorrow” slogan into “In Love With The Future” for the Brazilian market. Research showed that once translated into Portuguese, the slogan suggested that Intel would not fulfill its promise until tomorrow while the English slogan did not have this connotation. Intel used a technique known as transcreation to come up with a new slogan that was more relevant for the Brazilian market and conveying the image of a brand that looks towards the future – without delaying its promises until later.
If you are in the process of launching a marketing campaign in a foreign country, you should seek help from transcreation professionals as well as translators. While translators are qualified to translate content and are knowledgeable about the culture of the country where you want to market your product, they may not have any knowledge of marketing. On the other hand, transcreation experts have years of experience in marketing and can advise you on how to develop your campaign abroad.
Transcreation experts can help you translate slogans, puns, idioms, promotional messages and create an image for your brand. While a translator would simply repeat the slogan in another language, a transcreation expert can rephrase the slogan so that it is culturally relevant for your target audience while conveying the same ideas. Your slogans or promotional messages will be slightly different but the nuance, tone, meaning and effect will remain the same.
We at Human Touch Translations can help you with your international marketing campaign. Please get in touch with us for more information about our services and about what we can do to make your campaign relevant globally.
