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While most businesses realize the importance and value of expanding marketing campaigns to foreign markets, it can be a risky business without the proper professional marketing translation service. Accurate marketing campaign translation and localization is essential; not only within the language it is translated to, but it must also be accurate within the foreign cultural context.
Thousands of marketing campaigns have embarrassed their company because they did not do their homework thoroughly when it came to marketing translation. For example, Pepsi showed us that even multi-billion dollar corporate giants can offend foreign markets when they do not use professional advertising localization. They were sued by an Indian city court in 2004, for advertising a commercial which to the local Indian market, portrayed glorified child labor. Whether it was improper < translation from English to Hindi, or just negligent advertisement localization, the lawsuit – and the loss of the entire Indian market – could have been avoided by employing experienced Hindi translation services and translators.
Even advertisementtranslation from English to Irish was botched by a telecom company marketing campaign to the Northern Ireland market. In the mid-90’s, a telecom company called “Orange,” had a famous winning slogan: “The future is bright…. the future is Orange.” When “Orange” took their telecom marketing slogan and campaign to Northern Ireland – without any regional ad campaign localization - it did not go over well with the Irish Catholic population. For them, reference to “Orange” in such a context refers to the “Orange Order,” or Protestant Loyalists. So to the Irish Catholic, the slogan read, “The future is Orange, the future is Protestant Loyalist.” You can imagine the offense taken by what seemed like a very slanted, bipartisan telecom ad. A business can never be too careful – even when the languages are mutually intelligible.
Yet another example of a botched marketing campaign was from an old American computer company called “Wang,” when they tried to market their slogan “Wang Cares” in the UK market. To the company’s confusion, UK affiliates refused to air or print the slogan “Wang Cares.” You can guess why. If even American to British marketing can be occasionally botched, all the more reason to use a for localized marketing campaigns directed at foreign language markets.
Spanish advertising translations have recently been on the news many times. As available and prevalent as English to Spanish translation is, you would think marketing campaigns would go the extra mile and use professional Spanish marketing translation. It is obvious that when the “Got milk?” ad campaign asked the Latin American market “Are you lactating?” that they did not hire any kind of professional translation service. If it was the translation rates they were worried about, it’s unlikely they were aware that Tomedes has the lowest translation rates available from any top translation company. What excuse does any marketing division have now?
Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
Use the coupon code "Tomedes10" !
Marketing translations can be tricky to deal with and if not worked upon by a professional translator with a high degree of expertise in the area can frequently result in translation errors ranging from embarrassing to disastrous.
Marketing translations have long been the object of debate and discussions in the translation industry. Opinions vary from whether marketing materials should be translated or the source material needs to be recreated in the target language.
In my experience of working in the area of marketing translations I have come to understand that marketing materials can certainly be translated but with a somewhat different approach. That is one need not be completely faithful to the original content and rather work on adapting it for the intended effect in the target language. Some people might find that unethical, but then that’s the best way to process marketing translations. One can however come across marketing materials which need to be worked upon from the scratch in the target language.
Translation buyers can play a significant role in the success of marketing translations by cooperating with their translation providers in adapting marketing materials for the target language. They should be ready to discuss areas of the original document which might contain puns, local idioms or be tied to the local culture and trends so intimately that translating them would not be feasible. In such cases the translation buyer should provide inputs to the provider and help him her create perfect alternatives in the target language.
Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
Use the coupon code "Tomedes10" !
Business translation requirements have grown exponentially with increasing number of companies opening their branches in foreign countries. Various companies have different motivations for working in foreign countries. Some would like to attract potential customers from new markets to increase their customer base and profitability; some outsource selected operations like customer support or manufacturing to countries offering friendly business policies and cheaper labor.
Moving business operations to a company where a different language is spoken creates requirements for document translation. For example, a company based in the United States opening a branch in France would require many documents to be translated from English to French to facilitate smooth operations, as well as to connect with French customers who are not conversant in the English Language.
The kind of business related content that most frequently require language translation services are technical and legal documents, manuals and policies, advertising and publicity materials and even websites.
All of the above content, though related to business would require variously specialized translators, if one requires high quality translations. For example a professional translator who works well on legal and technical translation would most probably not be able to do a good job in publicity materials translation. This is because both kinds of document have different styles and personalities. Technical and legal documents are filled with jargon, hard facts and figures, while publicity materials can be quite creative and tied to a specific culture, language and temperament. Hence both the types of documents require different skills other expertise in a given pair of languages.
Taking the above facts into account it is recommended that you should always take the services of a professional translation provider for your business translation requirements.
Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
Use the coupon code "Tomedes10" !
Twitter is becoming increasingly influential around the world. Though it started out as an amusing social tool which individuals used to keep in touch with friends and family members, Twitter has grown by leaps and bounds and is now being increasingly used by various business enterprises and other organizations to stay in touch with their customers/users and keep them updated about the latest developments.
A company might have hundreds and thousands of ‘followers’. If you are such a company and have an international presence just imagine how helpful it would be to get your ‘tweets’ translated to the languages of your customers who might not be familiar with the primary language that your company uses, for example English.
You can make use of online twitter translation services like Twitrans which offer machine translations of your ‘tweets’. But before you go ahead with it remember that machine translation however sophisticated it might be is prone to producing errors. This is especially true of marketing translations which frequently involve creative content that does not lend itself well to machine translation as the intended subtleties are frequently lost in translation.
So the bottom line is use Twitter to market your products and services, and get a professional twitter translation provider to have your tweets translated for foreign language speakers.
Hot deal welcomes 2010 - 10% Discount on any translation order.
Use the coupon code "Tomedes10" !
Effective branding is dependent upon conveying the brand values of an organization on a consistent basis. Your professional translation provider should make the extra effort of getting familiar with your company, brand, services and/or products. However even if your translation provider takes the initiative to know your company better, it is you who can help him/her achieve a proper understanding. Providing the following to your professional translation expert would help you do just that.
Information about your company and branding
Provide your marketing translation provider with information about your company’s objective and values as well as its structure. An idea about the USP of the company would also be very useful.
Marketing materials
Marketing materials would include advertisements, leaflets, brochures, product guides and published materials like press releases. They would help a translator get the feel of the brands’ persona.
Terminology
Most industries and even companies use specific terminology for their products and processes among others. Providing the marketing translation provider with a glossary of such technical terms would help them do the work faster and also ensure accuracy.
Company Style Guide
If your company follows a corporate style guide then do make it available to your marketing translation provider. It would go a long way in helping the translation provider produce translations that are in sync with your company’s established style.
