As the world gets smaller and cultures continue to blend, sophisticated business leaders and marketers are refining the way they communicate their messages into foreign languages.
Think about how hard it is to get your message heard above the din of competing brand campaigns in your own language. Trying to do the same thing in another language is even trickier. How do you go about marketing and maintaining your brand image in another country? How do you ensure that the essence of your brand will resonate with customers in foreign markets? Companies spend plenty of time and money trying to figure that out.
That’s where transcreation can help.
While similar, there is a distinction between “translation” and “transcreation.” Here’s a brief summary of how they differ:
- Translation and transcreation each convert a message from one
language into another in a way that is both accurate and culturally sensitive. But transcreation brings a more creative element to the process, rewriting copy as if it were actually written in the target language while keeping the tone and emotion of the original message. - Transcreation is used most effectively in advertising, marketing and promotional campaigns where the need to communicate “creative” ideas and concepts is essential. Transcreation can be thought of more like creative copywriting than straight translation. Some of the more popular uses for transcreation services include brochures, websites, advertising copy, sales presentations, audio-visual voiceovers, and news releases. From a marketing perspective, transcreation upholds and protects the essence of your brand, regardless of country or language.
- Transcreation is more than just “informing” your target audience of a particular message. It’s about touching your audience in a more visceral, instinctive way—one that causes them to respond as you hoped, regardless of their culture, customs or language. Transcreated wording may vary considerably from the original document in order to achieve the desired results. (One example is a former Intel ad campaign in Brazil that changed its English-version tagline from “Sponsors of Tomorrow” to “In Love with the Future” in order to be better received in the Portuguese language.)
- Like translators, transcreation professionals must possess strong language skills, and extensive knowledge of the target culture. But they must also display creative writing abilities. This combination of talent produces a brand message that fits seamlessly with your foreign audience, including their unique customs, values, beliefs, idioms, dialects and traditions.
- In addition to wording, transcreation professionals can help recommend the most appropriate use of graphics and images in foreign markets. For example, a color or symbol in one country may be offensive in another country. Modifying creative elements to fit the cultural climate of your audience, without losing the emotional appeal of your message, is one of the unique benefits of transcreation over translation.
- Since transcreation involves more creative leeway than straight translation, you’re likely to work closer with a transcreation provider to make sure your original concepts and ideas are communicated accurately.
For more information about how transcreation can add the “creative touch” to your global outreach efforts, give us a call. We can also help by conducting focus groups, testing special terminology and sharing our expertise to match linguistic nuances of your target languages.