Transcreation: More than just marketing translation

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If you’re a marketing professional, you understand the importance of translating your company’s global message.

As you globalise, words may take on new meaning, images may have different implications and colors may suggest other emotions. During translation, you’re faced with the possibility of losing your marketing message by having it translated into a completely new language. Accuracy and clarity are probably just a couple of concerns that come to mind.

Yet you also need to remain consistent to your company’s message. Take, for example, the vocabulary you use to describe your services or the colors of your company brand. When you imagine two of the world’s largest global brands, Facebook and Coca-Cola, you probably think of the words “share,” “like” and “post” or envision a red and white cursive logo. This is the kind of brand awareness that all companies strive for because, much like familiar faces, we as humans gravitate towards recognisable images. The more consistent you are, the more likely your message is going to stick with your audience.

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Language expertise does not necessarily mean marketing expertise

To complement these marketing translation needs, it is essential that a skilled copywriter or an experienced marketing linguist who is familiar with the creativity of marketing, advertising and media copy is assigned to translate your project. This will help ensure your linguistic style of brand positioning is still apparent in your message when translated into a new language.

Just like you wouldn’t have your financial group or engineering team create your marketing briefs or corporate content, you wouldn’t want an inexperienced linguist working on your marketing translations. Having a linguist who understands marketing factors, such as tone of voice and corporate branding, will make your marketing translations more impactful in your target language.

Taking marketing creativity one step further

But what if you are looking to foster a completely new creative concept within a different language? While marketing translations can help you express your marketing content in a different language, they might not hold the same creative style needed to “wow” your audience in another country. As you can imagine, this requires something more than just translation – it’s known as transcreation.

During transcreation, experienced copywriters or marketing linguists are assigned to your project and work very closely with you to develop your localised marketing campaign. It is their job to further understand how your message works within the source language and redefine this message with similar appeal in your target language. Similar to translation, they render these new ideas while considering the effects of in-country sensitivities, such as customs, regulations and cultural differences.

Since transcreation is a more in-depth procedure, it does expand translation timelines and may initially cost more than a basic translate-edit-proof service, yet companies may choose to adopt this process if they want to transform their creative message for a new target audience. Transcreation is also beneficial for companies that wish to test out their marketing within a new country without having to hire an entire marketing team to develop their marketing strategy.

Differences between Translation, Copywriting and Transcreation?

Scratching your head to understand the differences between translation, copywriting and transcreation? Here’s a general breakdown of what you need to know:

1)     Translation – The process of rendering something into another language

2)     Transcreation – The process of rendering something into another language with much focus on intent, style, tone and context. Commonly used in marketing and advertising

3)     Copywriting – Style of writing for the purpose of advertising or marketing. Heavily focused on persuasion appeal

It is important to understand the differences as this will help you maximize the services provided by translation companies. Not only that, you want to make sure that you are getting the right kind of help that you need.

Don’t hesitate to drop us an email at sales@copywritingservices.com.sg should you require any help!