With the growth of the internet and technology, it is now possible to do business across borders. Most businesses are now expanding into new foreign markets to help them grow and keep up with stiff competition.
Unfortunately, global expansion is not without its challenges. One of the most common challenges of global expansion is cultural differences.
You may find an ad that may be perfect for one region of people may offend other people in another region. So if your business was to go into a new region, you might need to change a few things to adapt and survive in that market. This is where transcreation can be a handy tool for global expansion.
What it is
Translation is the process of adapting content in a different language, while creation is the process of coming up with content. Transcreation is a combination of both translation and creation. It is the process where a business changes a message from one language to another while still retaining its tone, context, intent, and style.
Transcreation is applicable in situations where translation and creation may not be enough. Sometimes translating content for use in another market may make unwanted changes to it, while creating new content may cause a business to lose its brand image. Or worse, your business could lose its intended message.
Transcreation ensures that your message is precise and appropriate. To achieve this, transcreation includes the translation of words, video, and imaging, so that it can capture the nuances of the intended market audience.
How it happens
The process of transcreation consists of several steps. These are steps that you will have to follow for the best results. Let’s have a look at some of these steps below.
Creative brief
In translation, all you need to start working on is the original text. But in transcreation, you must start with a creative brief, which is the same way that your original content begins.
Your marketing team will create a brief and get copywriters to work on it and come up with a message. This is also the case when it comes to transcreation. Your chosen team of creatives will look at the content and create similar content, except the new content will be in different languages.
Relying only on a translator for transcreation can only get you so far. That’s why having a local person who lives in the area where you are targeting is important because it ensures that you get the cultural nuances correct—all the while passing the same message.
Analysis of original content against the brief
This is where the transcreation team takes a deep dive into the original content enabling the transcreation team to understand the nuances. These are the tone, intent, and style used in the original content.
Doing this will help them to create content that conveys the exact same message. The only difference will be language and the use of different imagery where needed to ensure that their content is appropriate.
The actual transcreation
After a thorough analysis of the content and brief, transcreation can now begin. The team will now create a message in the target location’s local language. This message should take into account nuances in the target audience’s location, including figures of speech, slang, and trending catchphrases.
Translation of humor, idioms, or even wordplays needs some level of creativity. This is the kind of creativity that someone who is only a translator may not get right, which is why you need to go the whole nine yards when you choose to transcreate content for your business.
Need help with some transcreation? Day Translations has an in-house team of talented transcreators who can get the job done.
Delivery of new content
Once your team of transcreators finishes their work, you’ll be able to run sample tests. These tests are to determine if they met the necessary requirements. There are questions that you need to ask yourself at this point, including whether the transcreation elicits the same emotion as it did in the source language.
One way that you can test the quality of your transcreation is by running it on a sample of the target audience. You can organize a session with a few groups of people from within your target audience. In this session, you’ll run the content for them to watch.
As you do this, try to gauge their reactions. Then, ask yourself if that’s the reaction that you were going for. You can also ask the test audience group for feedback on the content.
Doing this will help you know if the content triggers the emotional connection that you wanted. If not, you’ll know that you need more work to get it there. Transcreation can be an expensive process, but that’s not to say that you should cut corners.
Your business will incur bigger losses if you use poorly transcreated content. Remember that the first impression in your new target market is important. It is better to get it right the first time or not to do it at all.
Where to get transcreation services
For your business to be successful beyond your borders, you need to adapt. Your business should appeal to different markets. While translation can help you get your message across, there are situations where it won’t work on its own. This is why you need to invest in transcreation services.
Transcreation services will help you make a good first impression in new markets, which goes a long way towards building emotional connections with people. It is these emotional connections that increase consumer buy-in.
For your globalization to work, you need only quality transcreation services. Day Translations is in the business of helping businesses reach wider audiences, and transcreation is one of the ways that we can help.
So when you’re not sure how to create content in different languages for different audiences, give us a call. Our experienced team of transcreators will help you create concise messaging to help your marketing material elicit the right reactions to your brand.