Everybody likes a good laugh, but I doubt it is
pleasant when it comes to business, for these multinational, multimillionaire
companies, if your advertising content is riddled with erroneous messages.
The world is an amazing melange of diverse people
with flamboyant cultures and dialects. The global business market might need to
take this into consideration, with plenty of urgency to spare. Globalisation of trade and economies has
companies communicating with customers in parallel to the respective assorted
cultural and linguistic backgrounds.
From
Adaptation to Localisation
The question is; how can we sell a standardised
product to local and different consumers?
There is an advantage in standardizing the strategy
of commination in all targeted countries and it lies mainly in the economies of
scale. Looking at it in that angle also lays ahead long term demise for your
market.
In a matter of speaking, God is in the details, and
in this situation, it should be done thoroughly. It’s like having a friend you
look out for but he is less inclined to do the same for you, it’s imprinted at
the back of your mind to move on and find what suites you because he cared less
if not at all. Same idea goes when establishing or launching your company’s
presence and products in a new country. If less thought is put into reaching
out to your clients through localisation
of your communication tools such as websites,
brochures, social media, public relations and news, the company will be known
as none existent in these parts, I know because as people take pride in which
they are, we appreciate being acknowledged.
Never
Get Lost In Translation
Setting up promotional advertisement, cars and
trucks printed and painted with company logo and slogan; the catch phrase meant
to be translated in the target geography of your business could cause your
company to be a laughing stock or notoriety might as well result, and over time
you will lose customers.
It’s important to invest in quality advertising translation services from a professional translation company
because advertising forms a core part of marketing which is a base line for any
business. Once your advertising material is poorly translated, it simply means
a misrepresentation of your business. Imagine operating a business with no
clients, a hospital with no doctors or patients, you just have a big clog of
concrete.
It would be worth your while to cogitate when
scaling your business to different geographies and cultures and consider a localisation
of your brand as a company. People prefer buying commodities which they which
are localized in their language because they can be sure of what they are
buying. It is therefore your obligation to ensure that you put all your
marketing materials into the language of the target market. This is pretty
fantastic.
Advertise and
Localize
It is important to take time, appreciate and
cultivating your target audience because if you have an amazing product and you
would like to share the experience, you have come thus far, to pack up with a
tainted name and lose out on a virgin market.
LOCALISATION
Localisation
involves adapting a product or service to a specific local market. Translation is one of the several elements of
the localisation process.
An
example is the Baidu search engine that has taken over the Chinese market
because of the interaction and experience that feels fully local to the Chinese
market.
Localisation
process may involve
-
Converting units of measure,
currencies etc., to local requirements
-
Modifying content to suite
consumption habits of other markets
-
Adapting visuals to target
markets
The
aim of localisation is to give a product the look and feel of having been
created for the target market and to eliminate, or at least minimize, local
sensitivities.
Advertising
Advertising is the communication relayed from
companies to persuade an audience to purchase their products. It is a form of
marketing that relies on persuasion, and it’s how a marketing campaign can help
a brand break through into new markets, for example through:
-
A
locally translated website
-
Localise
experience through conversion of currencies and units of measurement that suite
your target market.
-
Email
campaigns
-
etc.
Scenarios
Where Companies Get Lost in Translation-Call It Advertising Blunders!
There is no room for one-size-fits all in today’s
global marketing strategy. Translation is effortless and a relentless
persuasion. Localising your slogan and text context to the target diverse market
begets positive feedback.
A trickle of companies like Pepsi Cola, Coca-Cola,
has written history of unintentional translation fails with their slogans. KFC
mistranslated “finger-lickin’ good” to something that identified with
cannibalism in Chinese- “We will eat your fingers off”.
Another example is the American Dairy Association
Original: “Got Milk” in translation is “Are you lactating” in Mexico.
Perdue Chicken original tagline “It takes a tough
man to make a tender chicken” and translated into “it takes a hard man to make
a chicken aroused” and ”it takes a virile man to make a chicken pregnant ” in
Mexico.
The most popular one is the Pepsi erroneous slogan
in China. Its original is “Come alive with Pepsi!” and its Chinese translation
was “Pepsi bring your ancestors back from the dead!”
So
to speak, success lies in going very local. From personal experience in
marketing, tours around the region and target market location, deep into the
heart of some of these towns and areas granted my former company a chance to
localise itself with the locals. With the brand translated into the major local
spoken languages in Uganda, that aspect guaranteed a vantage point for the
company.
Language
services are critical to any company’s growth. The real challenge is how to
establish a personalised connection with these foreign audiences.
When
launching a product or a campaign in a new country, it’s no longer enough to
just translate the brand or the user manual, more thought has to be taken into
localised brand and product experience engaging with the customer.
Many
companies prefer to use low cost machine translations to develop a connection
with their prospectus buyers in other countries. It is risky because a campaign
with a sentiment message and a syntax analysed through a machine translation
will give you the gist of the campaign but the semantics of the message is lost
in the translation.
Machine
translation does word to word without conception of the information and cannot
solve ambiguities. It’s only a human mind that is able to decode such vagueness
in an originally human composed message.
A
recommendation for an expanding company or business is, communication is like
seeing and having an opening to the world through one window. It is that, that
gives you access to achieving your goal. A
translation company will help you and your business communicate effectively
to global audiences. Translation companies do this by making sure the content
of their client companies’ communications is culturally sensitive and presented
in languages that their audiences understand, it lies in the human capacity to
decode a message and bestows its message intact even after conversion.
