Brands Beyond Borders

Some companies have grown exponentially by accommodating consumers with diverse dialects, languages, and cultures. Many brands have made localisation a force to help them conquer this kind of growth, allowing them to tap into the new markets. However, the trend of transforming content to a specific region or culture is not new. Many American software giants like Microsoft deployed their solutions worldwide back in the 80s. Today, with the help of digital communication, some famous brands are rendering content to countries outside their geographical location. It has allowed them to stay locally and globally relevant.

Companies like Coca-Cola and Visa have made their brand almost invincible by recognising the power of “local relevance.” These brands dare to translate their content to regional contexts and are confident in curating content specific to a region’s preferences and tastes. Gaming brands like Nintendo and PUBG have gone global while managing to keep their local relevance alive.

How does maintaining “Local Relevance” help these brands grow? 

Localisation recognises the role of values, cultures, and dialects during brand messaging. It allows businesses to adapt to local language, style, and design. These elements take shape due to geographical barriers; however, localisation helps brands go beyond texts and phrases. Localisation does not mean mere “translation.” It is more than that. Although translators play a massive role in localisation projects, localisation has numerous key factors that come into play.

Competition in the international market is fierce; therefore, no two brands can afford to offer similar brand experiences. Such continuous differentiation has forced brands to pay great focus on a customer’s personal experiences. In addition, a brand with the ambition of going global cannot target diverse consumers using the same marketing campaign! Hence, we see companies optimising their ads for specific target markets. Consumers also want brands to communicate in their native dialects. It gives them a more personal feel. 

According to a report by Common Sense Advisory, 72% of shoppers prefer purchasing from sites that use their native language. Almost 55% of them exclusively choose these sites over others. Let’s evaluate some brands communicating with global customers and understand how they connect with their audiences at a deeper level to drive engagement. 

Apple

There is no doubt about how much of a marketing genius Steve Jobs was. He helped Apple establish itself as a desirable, unique, and fashionable electronics brand. Their simplistic yet stylish products differentiated them from the herd in the USA. Apple is one of the biggest companies globally that launches culturally-relevant marketing campaigns all over the globe. Their previous localised campaigns are noteworthy! For instance, let’s look at their campaign in Japan. The Japanese culture disapproves of criticising others; therefore, Apple’s Mac vs. PC marketing campaign couldn’t work in Japan. Apple couldn’t take a direct shot at Microsoft! Rather than translating their American ad, they collaborated with local comedians to show Mac is for fun-loving individuals. Their marketing team didn’t just translate their content but also aligned it to match the cultural expectations of the native audiences.

Coca-Cola

This brand sells more than 2 billion bottles every day! Coca-Cola was one of the few global brands that focussed on capturing international audiences. Their campaigns, such as “Share a Coke,” used common English names like Jack, Tom, Mike, Alisa, etc., on the label. It helped them build familiarity and gave customers a reason to share their drinks. In countries like Russia, Coca-Cola localised the names using native names to synergise with the locals. However, in China, people don’t use initial names to address others. They prefer to address individuals by their last name. Therefore, Coca-Cola used taglines like “Share a Coke with your close friend or classmate.” The campaign brought impressive results for the brand, allowing them to bypass cultural constraints in China.

Nintendo

If we talk about app localisation, we must address the brilliant work done by Nintendo. Nintendo invests aggressively in in-app localisation, allowing them to customise their content for a specific demographic. They tailor the gaming experience by inducing local elements that appeal to the local audiences. Their strategies have helped them double their growth! They have also localised business steps like segment testing, product development, and content translation. Today Nintendo works with numerous localisation experts to develop marketing content. They also customise their official releases as per different markets. All this makes the brand deliver native gaming experiences while consistently maintaining the same level of satisfaction.

PUBG

PUBG, developed by Brendan Greene, is a popular action game with more than 400 million users worldwide! The game is widely popular in countries like China, the USA, the UK, Germany, India, etc. Acquiring such a huge base was impossible without translating or localising the content. You see, gaming is all about “emotional experiences.” That is why the game features twelve languages, including English, allowing them to engage local audiences and develop stronger connections. PUBG enables users to experience the same thrill regardless of their language.

Poor Translation & Localisation can Result in Branding Disasters!

As discussed, localisation is more than translation! It allows you to capture, grow, and retain new markets in the global economy. By now, you must have understood how localisation provides a competitive advantage to brands. 

But branding your business in an unfamiliar market is a challenge in itself. It would be best if you had insights and data that could highlight the preferences of your target audiences. Your business should partner with a professional translation and localisation company that can provide the right intellect and strategy to localise your content. Or else, poor translation and localisation can have severe business implications. Let’s evaluate them.

It can hinder communication.

If your brand wants to establish itself in multicultural settings, you must launch global marketing campaigns in many languages. To achieve that, you need to curate and deploy your final content within a fast turnaround. Failing to do so will hinder global communication and growth.

Low-quality translations

Imagine you have set up a website to expedite your products and services. What if your newly launched website is unable to deliver the right translation? What if the terms, measurements, and product descriptions are inconsistent? If your website translates your content into inappropriate language, it will severely harm your brand’s reputation and may lead to financial loss. 

Extensive pressure on customer support

Low-quality translation and localisation can pressure your customer executives. What if customers come to your website and raise support requests because they cannot understand the content? Therefore, your brand must ensure that support materials are localised for native markets.

Slow translation process

A slow translation process can hinder your international success. Imagine during an international launch; you cannot push out your content. Local players can benefit from that situation by launching the same services or content before you. Therefore, you may lose business to local players if the translation takes too long.

No centralised control 

No centralised control over the content will lead to inconsistent translations. Your brand messaging may become unreliable if your business partners or stakeholders use different translation suppliers.

No translation management portal

Falling for ineffective translation solutions can add severely to your business cost. Without a translation management portal, you won’t be able to keep track of your actual spending on translation and localisation. Exporting requirements, importing, billing, etc., requires you to keep a central solution for costing visibility and control.

Simply Localising Your Content is Not Enough to reach New Customers!

Today, 60 percent of the websites are in the English Language. According to a report by Statista, 26 percent of online users search using English keywords. It means that a massive online audience is underserved! Hence, localising your content is not enough to drive new clients. That is why brands need multilingual SEO and eCommerce Localisation. 

Let’s break these two factors into separate segments.

E-commerce Localisation

E-Commerce localisation can help you achieve excellence in the international marketplace. It allows you to transform your online business’ content (an app or website) in a way that it resonates with the native audiences you are targeting. It can help your eCommerce website or app adhere to local regulations, preferences, format, or currencies. 

Multilingual SEO

Since there are numerous users on the internet from different linguistic backgrounds, your brand needs to adopt multilingual SEO optimization. It can support your business in addressing and engaging the rest of the world! For instance, if your eCommerce business is based in the USA, you might consider attracting non-American clients or visitors from non-English speaking countries. Your brand must optimise its SEO strategy to attract and engage them. You can get visibility across different languages and locations. You’ll get to attract more traffic and more growth compared to your competitors. It will also help you evaluate the demands of your international clients.

Want to go Global? Consider these Checkpoints Before You Take Action!

Financial & operational stability of your business

International expansion of your business demands huge investment and a lot of resources. Your brand needs to have financial & operational stability before you sign up for this change.

Presence of potential international customers

If you have figured out an existing customer base for your product in an international market, it’s good to expand. Ensure you invest in the right metrics and surveys to evaluate the market potential and size. 

Knowledge of Markets suitable for your brand

As a gradually progressing brand, never focus on entering all spaces simultaneously. First, you must determine which market you want to tap. You can choose a market closer to your location so that your new customers share the same dialect, behaviour, or culture. It would keep your brand’s initial cost of translation and localisation low. Similar market space shares the same business climate, size, innovations, etc.

Are you “Ready” to tap into the new Markets?

Before opening up to the concept of “going global,” your business must prepare for the new markets. Brand messaging, marketing assets, logos, content, images, taglines, etc., must be localised to make your brand sound native. For this checkpoint, eCommerce localisation and multilingual SEO can be very effective tools.

How can Into23’s Localisation & Translation services help?

Into23 has a deep supply chain of professional freelance translators in key markets who use the latest technology during the translation project. We have years of experience as a language translation agency in Hong Kong. Check out our Portal for central billing, reporting, and ordering solutions.

We also provide automated translation management, which allows us to distribute content at lightning speed. Apart from automated content management, our team also offers Automated Translation Quality Assurance to meet the highest compliance standards. We help you adapt your brand’s message to your target audience’s cultural norms. Businesses like yours can develop custom translation workflow and achieve impactful marketing translation. 

Clients can leverage our neural machine translation engines for localising support documentation and FAQS. For your legal documents, you can utilise our native language translators. However, the post-editing process involves the manual presence of editors who correct the output. Allow us to take away your pain of managing translations! We respond to all incoming inquiries within 1 hour during our operational hours. Contact us now! 

Use Professional Advertising Translations to avoid these pitfalls

With the ubiquity of the internet and social media, the world really is your brand’s oyster. You can reach billions more consumers than was possible just 20 years ago, but while it’s much easier to access foreign markets, it’s far harder to make a connection with consumers that speak a different language. This is where localisation comes to the rescue.

Localisation is not just about translation, though. It’s also about brand designing in a way that makes it easy for a new reader or listener to understand what you are saying. There are many pitfalls in this localisation translation process, as many a prominent brand has discovered.

Here are 10 translation blunders in advertising

… and how they demonstrate the need for professional human translation and localisation, followed by tips on how to get your marketing customisation / localisation right first time.

Food & Beverages

1. Coors was left red-faced when it translated its Turn it Loose slogan into “suffer from diarrhoea” in Spanish. This blunder highlights the difficulty of translating slang between languages.
2. Though chicken feet are a staple in China, citizens of the PRC were probably surprised to be encouraged to “eat their fingers off” by KFC when it tried to localise its “finger lickin’ good” slogan into mandarin.
   Source
3. But when it comes to bizarre slogan translations, The American Dairy Association excelled by asking consumers whether they were lactating, instead of the catchy “got milk.”
4. After the last two ad mishaps, Chinese consumers could probably have done with a Pepsi, given the brand promised the drink “brings you back from the grave” when it launched in China. The original brand promise was that it “brings you back to life.”
   Source

Automobiles

1. Staying with the death theme, Ford advertised in Belgium by translating the slogan “every car has a high-quality body” into “every car has a high-quality corpse”. (They just need a Pepsi.)
2. When Mercedes-Benz entered China, it chose to do so under the moniker Bensi, or rush to die.

Home & Furnishings

1. Over in the UK, Ikea introduced the Fartfull workbench into the UK, which raised much mirth.
2. And while Paxam’s Barf washing powder also raised a few chuckles as the word means to vomit in English slang, other errors have been more insensitive.
   Source

Energy & Banking

1. For example, Gazprom named its Nigerian company Nigaz.
2. Every brand hopes its marketing campaigns drum up more business, but HSBC Bank didn’t even get off the starting block when it translated its “Assume Nothing” slogan into “Do Nothing” in many countries under a 2009 global campaign.

What is localisation? Translation, Localisation and Transcreation

If your business specialises in a particular industry, you may have developed a comprehensive dictionary of frequently used language words for your customers. You also may be translating print materials, such as brochures or web content for mobile phones and tablets. But what exact service do you need?

Translation is the process of reworking a text from a source language into another language, maintaining the original meaning. Meanwhile, localisation is the process of adapting content or a product or service for a specific culture or market, and transcreation, a portmanteau of translate and creation, is a form of translation that preserves the original context, emotion, tone and intent. Transcreation often begins with a creative brief, rather than the source text, and includes the translation of images into a different context. Its uses include software localisation services.

Why it’s important to localise

Creating a product or service that caters to a global audience is a competitive advantage in today’s economy. Being able to reach the widest range of customers possible means your products or services are easier to sell in other markets. The best way to do this is to localise your product or service. A common misconception about localisation is that it’s an up-front cost and comprises a one-off period of manual translation. These are actually quite different things involved in localisation and the process is often a continuous one.

Tips on how to get localisation right first time

Use a professional multilingual team for localisation and translation. That way, localisation can be better planned and executed and you’ll be less likely to experience a faux pas. Test your translation and localisation as you go along in order to spot the right choices for the correct audience. The professionals don’t rush into creating a potentially misleading translation in order to quickly launch a campaign, service or product.

Localise your ads on a trial basis, not on the basis of any preconceptions you may have about the language. Consider all the options, have multiple mock-ups prepared for each language and test which is the best way to communicate your message in the market.

Find the right translator

Finding a translator who speaks the language you need and who can translate professionally is one thing. Finding a translator who speaks your target market’s native language and understands the cultural nuances can be quite another. If you don’t speak the language or you don’t have a translator who speaks it, a popular alternative is to contact a professional translator agency, which can ensure that the translation is done professionally and accurately, and that there will be no surprise embarrassments.

Take care of your target audience

Making sure you understand your market is imperative if you want to get localisation right. If you’re thinking about applying for a European franchise licence or entry into the Japanese market, you need to find out what your target audience is comfortable with. Look at the language the country uses for its official communication. You may find that they use only one language, like Spanish or Portuguese, or that the majority of citizens use several languages, like English, Chinese, and Korean.

Identify your consumers’ cultural needs

Understanding the needs of the people you’re targeting is just as important as understanding your market. In many cases, your target audience will be multi-ethnic, having interacted with a multitude of cultures. This is especially true in a diverse region like Asia. Moreover, localising from two closely related languages and cultures, for example with an English to French translation service, is less challenging than localising between two unrelated languages, such as with English to Chinese translation services.

Whether you need the best legal translation Hong Kong has to offer, scientific and technical translation, or game localisation services, getting localisation right means finding the right localisation translation service. To find out more, get in touch with Into23 today.

Read our Blog here.