Discover the importance of transcreation in global marketing campaigns. Learn how adapting your message to fit cultural nuances can prevent costly blunders and ensure your brand resonates with diverse audiences. Avoid translation pitfalls and enhance your international reach.
Advertising and marketing campaigns are notoriously difficult to translate. And sometimes, literal translations don't cut it.
Translation is the word-for-word transfer of text from one language to another. On the other hand, transcreation (translation + creation) is the act of changing words and phrases to make their meanings appropriate for a specific regional audience. Transcreation helps brands avoid marketing blunders caused by translation mistakes.
When you're taking your brand and marketing campaigns into different countries, there are all kinds of language traps you can fall into. Transcreation is a process that can help ensure that your marketing messages are safely translated.
The following are examples of big brands that relied too much on direct translation instead of transcreation in their advertising.
In 2015, McDonald's launched a famous ad campaign with the tagline, I'm Lovin' It. When translated, the tagline didn't work well in certain countries. For example, McDonald's China used "我就喜欢 (wo jiu xihuan)" as their slogan. Loosely translated, this means, "I like it no matter what you say." Some people thought the tagline sounded too negative about McDonald's. That's not the kind of message most marketers want to send.
In 2015, Nike celebrated the Chinese New Year with a big translation error. Nike's Air Force 1 shoe for the Chinese market bore ideographs that were meant to express new-year blessings. Unfortunately, Nike committed an embarrassing cultural blunder: the Chinese character Fa (becoming rich) was placed on the left shoe and Fu (happiness) on the right. However, the two characters placed next to each other translate to getting fat. Not exactly the right message to appeal to Chinese runners.
In 1988, the General Electric Company (GE) teamed up with the British telecom giant Plessy. This partnership was rebranded as GPT. This wasn't appreciated by the French because the initials GPT are pronounced as J'ai pété, which had the rather unfortunate meaning in French of I've farted. Silly indeed, but the error damaged the reputation of the brand.
Frank Perdue is often regarded as the creator of the first brand for chicken products. During the 1970s, Frank was inspired to coin the slogan It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken. Advertising Age ranked the resulting ad campaign as one of 1971's finest. Sadly, this slogan was challenging to translate. Spanish-speaking audiences got something closer to It takes a vigorous man to make a chicken affectionate. Even for the '70s, that was pushing it a bit.
The luxury car giant entered the Chinese market under the brand name Bensi. Although Bensi has a nice ring to it, advertisers missed something important. Unfortunately, Bensi means Rush to Your Death in Chinese. It's not exactly the kind of image you want to promote for a car brand. Mercedes-Benz realized its error and didn't let this go on for too long. The marketers at Mercedes used transcreation to swap the Chinese name to Ben Chi, which translates to something more like Dashing Speed, a subtle alteration that made all the difference.
In the Turkish language, pedo simply means children. Children wear diapers, so why not call your brand pedo? Unfortunately, it turned out that a Turkish brand named PEDO didn't do very well in overseas markets where the word had a much more negative connotation.
Translation mistakes like these might be amusing when you read about them, but they're no laughing matter if they adversely affect your brand's message. Big brands like Nike can probably afford a marketing slip up now and then, but a smaller company might permanently lose its market share. Using transcreation can help you avoid sending the wrong message and making costly mistakes.
Transcreation takes more time and resources than a word-for-word text translation. But the extra effort and expense can pay dividends. To transcreate your content effectively, you need to work with native speakers who can create copy that reflects the message you want to send.
Transcreation can be especially useful when translating the following:
In your global marketing campaigns, it pays to try transcreation so you won't miss important cultural differences. Here are a few examples of words that can get you into trouble:
Using transcreation rather than just simple translation can enable you to successfully adapt your marketing messages to different audiences. With a cultural understanding of each of your target markets, you can ensure your campaigns are suitable for each region before they go live.
Your translators can interact with Localize’s platform to ensure your global messages have a local touch. Contact us to learn how we can help take your international campaigns to new heights!
At Localize, our passionate writers explore a wide range of localization topics, from technology trends to cultural insights. With diverse backgrounds in various fields, they bring unique perspectives to their articles, aiming to inform and inspire our readers.
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