For many companies, global marketing means having a limited number of user-based materials, like brochures or technical product pamphlets, translated into another language. Often, companies cringe at the thought of the extra cost and dedication of resources required to correctly approach a global market with a complete localized strategy designed with the proper translation and transcreation.
Transcreation? Yes. Transcreation is the key to a successful global marketing strategy because your brand surrounds your customer with your message comfortably and effectively to fit their localized market.
Look at it this way: It’s not enough to simply translate marketing materials into another language if the rest of the message and branding is completely off.
Transcreation is a larger process than simple translation because you are creating a brand and message that meets and greets customers on a cultural level with images, intonation, style, and content. Gone are the days when a brochure or product manual could be translated into a few languages without concern for the subtidal nuances of culture.
Why?
The clear answer is that a transcreation content strategy is necessary because customer transfers the discomfort of language and cultural barriers onto the message and value proposition of the brand. With this in mind, these are the four trends in transcreation marketing that are changing the face of global marketing strategies:
- Global Growth. Many companies set their sights on global domination as part of the business plan without ever considering the necessity create a transcreation marketing strategy. Without planning the proper go-to-market strategy that includes the holistic approach of localization, your marketing message, brand, and sales expectations may be completely off base. Each global marketplace comes with a different set of cultural and linguistic challenges that can be visual, aural, or tactile. While a customer does not understand why they like competitor offerings better, customers will explain the lack of brand attraction with each mighty dollar, peso, or yen they spend.
- Change Causes Pain. When creating marketing materials, the cardinal rule of engagement is creating a strong brand that people that resonates with people. Globalized marketing without a transcreation content strategy can be disastrous and expensive for a company, brand, and reputation. For example, in 2009, HSBC Bank learned how much it cost to rebrand due to transcreation problems when their “Assume Nothing” campaign translated overseas as “Do Nothing.” As a result, HSBC Bank spent over $10 million dollars to change their tagline worldwide to a friendly, more culturally acceptable “The World’s Private Bank.” Small differences in cultures can translate into big discomforts to your customer base and damage to your bottom line.
- Digital Representation. Some companies believe that a complete digital marketing strategy means content and website translationally correct for the localized marketing. In fact, that is only a small part of the digital footprint of the company. Expected by most buyers in an international market, this short-sighted approach to digital marketing simply will not be enough to give you the edge over your competition in the global marketplace. “From soup to nuts” is an American idiom that expresses the need for a complete transcreation digital marketing strategy beginning to end including digital content, website design, social media, and SEO. By touching every part of the marketing channel, you are sure that your customer is receiving the right message and brand representation to boost conversions.
- The rise of the Mobile Market. In the way that the internet changed buying habits for customers around the world, the mobile market is doing the very same thing. Adding the element of on-demand marketing to an on-the-move audience, mobile marketing is giving customers the ability to find sellers quickly at the right time in the buying cycle. “NOW” is the catch-phrase for the mobile generation. Without a properly optimized transcreation content marketing strategy aimed at the mobile market, many companies will be left behind due to a lack of quality content that is easily accessible at the right buy-in moment for the customer. Long customer service responses, unavailable products, and culturally inaccessible information can be the death of any attempt at globalization. Studies show that even price is secondary to customer demand for localized information.
With the dawn of the internet generation, the world moved into a place where language and cultural barriers are no longer acceptable between companies and their buyers. All marketing materials, digital and traditional, must be aligned with the proper transcreation content strategy to really win a place in the global market with customers.
Just as it would be unwise to open a Mexican food restaurant in downtown Singapore without great research and market planning, it is equally unwise to go global without the correct transcreation marketing strategy that surrounds your audience with a comfortable, relational brand.
Ready to plan your next transcreation marketing project?
LatinoBridge provides premium translation and localization services in over 100 languages to help you reach and engage your customer around the clock.
