Transcreation vs Translation: What are the differences?

Failing to engage in meaningful transcreation when introducing products to a foreign market can be costly. Do so at your peril. Marketing-oriented translation work is beset with potential hazards.

Whether you are concerned with packaging, signage, ad copy, or an international website’s user interface, you know that the path is challenging. (Those compliance and training people don’t know how good they’ve got it.) There is a single mistake that marketing-oriented translation teams make when porting their message to a new market. And if you avoid that mistake, your likelihood of developing a successful campaign goes up dramatically.

The #1 mistake made by most translation teams is… Concentrating on translation over transcreation.

What is transcreation?

In short, it is the process of taking a current brand or message and a.) assessing its meaning and significance in its home market, b.) analyzing the target market to discover if that meaning resonates and is culturally significant there, and c.) developing a lexicon, set of guidelines, and body of concepts that will govern how that brand is used in the target market.

A competent transcreation team first works to understand your brand, then researches the target market using native speakers and residents, and finally proposes a modified or new brand identity and guidelines together with launch alternatives. This makes transcreation a more profound consultative process than localization. Localization assumes that a base level of appropriateness is already in play for a brand and strives to ensure that translation efforts are executed in a way that respects local market behavior.

Localization also strives to offer translation that is both technically correct and rich in nuance, using idioms and slang (where appropriate) to convey an already determined message. Strict translation (whether human or machine-based) is then reserved for content that doesn’t rely heavily on context, like ingredients, technical product descriptions, or assembly instructions.

Clients come to us with a variety of different translation needs, and we often need to determine whether the most appropriate approach begins with transcreation or whether we can move straight to localization and translation work. Emerging translation programs (those just getting off the ground in porting content to a new market and language group) need a firm foundation of transcreation.

How Ignoring Transcreation Can Harm Your Brand's Global Expansion

Much of our work in the online games space falls into this category – young companies with new products are preparing to enter international markets for the first time. When we encounter more mature programs, there is less need for the deep dive implied by transcreation (unless we are asked to rescue a mature program in deep trouble). Instead, we work within existing, well-conceived international branding guidelines to provide localized, audience-appropriate content. This is our work for brands like Nike, providing on-the-fly translation for World Cup videos. What’s at stake in ignoring the transcreation process? Here are four key ways (with examples) of how ignoring transcreation can damage a brand launch in a new market: Failure to Communicate Brand Attitude/Promise: KFC (formerly Kentucky Fried Chicken) is now the largest restaurant chain in China with over 4500 outlets.

It also had the distinction of being the first Western fast-food company in China, opening in 1987. Unfortunately, KFC’s slogan at the time was “Finger-Lickin’ Good” – intending to convey the idea that their food was so tasty that you would ignore good table manners and lick your fingers clean rather than lose even a smidgen of the Colonel’s secret blend of herbs and spices. The slogan (and the brand) is meant to convey a “down home” sensibility and guilty pleasure richness. When “Finger-Lickin’ Good” was originally translated into Chinese, the nearest approximation involved the Chinese characters that make the phrase “Eat Your Fingers Off.”

While this is amusing in its own right, the more important message is that beginning with the brand promise and then working towards a tagline is the more powerful and appropriate way to communicate rather than translating “backward” from a slogan and hoping it hits home in a new market. Failure to Understand What Kind of Product You Are Selling: In the United States, dishwashers are a standard appliance in most home kitchens. In fact, more than 90% of homes built since 2003 are equipped with them. Thus, in the US, dishwashers are marketed as a suburban commodity with appropriate imagery.

Transcreation: The Key to Avoiding Marketing Missteps in New Markets

Marketing dishwashers in Asia using a similar strategy is doomed to failure. In Pacific Asia, dishwashers are a luxury good that cost an average of $730 per unit – more than the monthly cost of a full-time maid in countries like Thailand, Indonesia, and the Philippines. And these countries have a known preference for employing domestic workers for household chores. Pitching dishwashers as a commodity rather than a luxury for these markets is the kiss of death – one reason why global adoption of dishwashers has been so sluggish.

Manufacturers like Bosch and Whirlpool continue to market based on features. However, consumers, in this case, are most likely not the end-users and are more concerned with fewer features and simpler instructions – and opt for hand-washing instead. Failure of Imagery To Communicate the Brand Message: When Pampers wanted to launch its disposable diaper line in Japan in the early 70’s, the company’s advertising team wanted to use a campaign that had been very successful in the US market. Baby boomers will remember the television ad of a stork delivering diapers to a happy home. The image worked great in the US market because the legend of the stork bringing babies cemented consumers’ minds that disposable diapers (and the convenience that comes with them) were an integral part of modern baby care. Unfortunately, the image made no sense in Japan, and new parents had no idea what the ad was supposed to convey.

A bit of transcreation work would have done the trick – a legend going back to the 14th Century in Japan is that babies arrive in giant peaches, ferried to deserving parents down peaceful streams and rivers. Failure to Respect Local Buying Norms and Conventions: Africa is a big place with many language groups and exceptionally dispersed buying power. So, despite the geographic size of the African market, it is often most economical for companies to package their goods using the most minimal printed language and, at most, brand names and limited imagery. In addition, it’s convention in many African countries to include pictures of what is inside a package on the label. So, a box of diapers has pictures of diapers. A crate of oranges has images of oranges printed on it. And Gerber Baby Food introduced its products to the African market using the same labeling it uses in North America and Europe – with the iconic picture of the “Gerber Baby” on the jar. You can figure out the rest. At worst, you risk losing millions (or more) in cost and potential revenue with a botched and memorably bad product launch in a new market. You only have one chance to make a first impression and if that is done badly, no amount of brand clout in your home market can save you.

Got any stories to share? Thoughts about how best to incorporate transcreation in your brand’s international launch?