Marketing and Transcreation: Share Your Message Worldwide

Many factors contribute to the success of marketing content, but does your message translate between languages? SEO and keywords won’t save you in this instance, but a professional translator skilled in transcreation will.

Marketers work hard to come up with fresh content that will catch your attention. Usually the more unique the message the greater the response, however that can prove difficult when that same message is translated into a different language.

A creative translator easily recognizes when linguistic flexibility is needed for clarity. Many words and phrases are not universal and need to be tweaked to be understood. For instance, the American phrase, “Hit it out of the park,” wouldn’t necessarily make sense to someone who didn’t have any knowledge of America’s favorite pastime: baseball. Using this logic, what Americans know references a home run could be misinterpreted as an act of violence; a devastating mistake for a marketing campaign. Of course the actual words in your message are important, but functional communication relies on more than just different arrangements of letters. Adapting a message from one language into another while focusing on the intent, style, tone and context of the message is called transcreation, and is the most useful resource for multilingual marketing.

A translator who is well versed in transcreation may already have an idea of a comparable phrase designated for the population they are trying to reach. But other times, finding a phrase to do the tone justice can be difficult. Using our previous example, in the United States, “Hit it out of the park,” represents a great achievement or going above and beyond. That is the feeling and tone that needs to be reproduced, rather than the physical action. A bilingual speaker who is not certified in translation may overlook the need for transcreation, whereas a professional linguist keeps it front of mind while analyzing any marketing content.

Being able to distinguish when more creativity is needed is what draws the line between a good translator and a great one. At Syntes, we take pride in our translators' intuition and capacity to think outside the box. Theirs is the talent that lies behind the most effective multilingual marketing campaigns worldwide, assuring that your message is conveyed quickly, uniquely and most importantly accurately.