Global Transcreation Blog

Oy Iceland, we said we wanted our CASH back!

We have had the global meltdown, a plague of free-loading politicians and now the subtle wrath of a Nordic god spraying a fine aerosol of pumice dust and glass fragments at the perfect altitude to inhibit the modern jetliner while remaining invisible to the naked eye. Thus, closing all northern European airways with, it seems a particular fixation on the UK.

With our airports closed, planes parked in the long-stay and runways being used for rollerblading and kite flying, London experienced a sunny and very tranquil weekend. Well for those UK residents not stranded abroad (some 100,000) anyway.

Does humour define a culture? Certainly you need to understand local tastes. For instance we Brits pride ourselves on an acerbic sense of humour with bonus points awarded for style as much as for substance.

My opening sentence was an off-the-cuff remark made, not by some tabloid journalist or Breakfast TV presenter, but by a serious journalist on a highly regarded radio current and affairs programme. Appropriate? Well yes, what is the alternative – mass insurrection? You’ve got to laugh.

In case you are still struggling with the meaning and context the cash in question is the money that the British government spent bailing out the UK customer accounts of bankrupt Icelandic banks and which it is trying to recover from the government of Iceland. While in reality all we seem to be getting in return are several million tonnes of ash!

All of which just reinforces the importance of context for any joke or funny line. Many of my American colleagues unconsciously make reference to ‘Saturday Night Live’an iconic US comedy programme which has lead to characters such as Chevy Chase and Adam Sandler being introduced to the world at large not only in general conversations, but also in webinars and conference presentation. (Thanks guys bring back Bob Hope.)

The Brits will regularly use references from Month Python – “nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition” or “ This parrot is not resting it is dead, deceased…” as often as Shakespeare “I am a man more sinned against than sinning.” – the politician’s favourite!

The Diamond Arm

While for Russians nearly every expression from the 1968 Soviet slapstick comedy ‘The Diamond Arm’ became popular or has passed into everyday use. My favourite – which will strike a chord with many an Anglo-Saxon – is, “Only aristocrats and degenerates drink champagne in the morning…[cheers!]” (Шампанское по утрам пьют только аристократы или дегенераты) .

So what’s my point? First, humour gets you noticed even a bad or weak joke will elicit a groan. Getting noticed is the point of advertising and promotion. Every culture has it jokes, every language its puns. So rather than avoiding humour in global or multicultural communications embrace it, exploit, it enjoy it.

Just remember that what constitutes ‘humour’ is in the funny bone of the audience and a good comedian always plays to his audience! Taking a transcreative approach will ensure that the appropriate local equivalent, character of fun, cliché or proverb is applied.

George Best in his prime

An apt and appropriate postscript to our Russian champagne expression is a quote from famous ‘70’s footballer (soccer player) George Best when asked what had happened to his rapidly diminishing fortune, “Well I spent most of it on wine, woman and gambling and frittered away the rest.”

Transcreation - a Trojan Horse for centralization?

Is transcreation just a Trojan horse used by Global VPs of Marketing to wrest global campaign production responsibility away from the countries where they will be executed?

I guess the answer depends on how paranoid you are or how dictatorial your VP of Marketing is. My own view is that in the present competitive, budget constrained environment, both transcreation and centralization have individual merit when considering the best approach to global marketing campaign production and execution.

First and foremost transcreation requires an intimate knowledge of a local market and constant exposure to the local media. Many Belgians, Canadians and Swiss speak ‘French’, although any Parisian would happily debate this over a Ricard (Pastis) or two. However, the TV, Newspapers and culture in Brussels, Quebec, Lyons and Lausanne vary considerably.

QED: any creative translators participating in the transcreation process should reside in their native country.

Anyone for Pastis?

There has been a significant trend towards centralization of production of global marketing campaigns. Cost, time-to-market and control of messaging are all reasons regularly cited by clients I meet. My experience tells me that the management culture and organizational structure of the individual large international corporation does play a large part in this decision too.

It is not surprising that where a company has a strong directive, command and control approach to management and the brand the more likely it is to be heavily centralized. I am sure several brands spring immediately to mind?

What can be centralized? Well pretty much everything. What should be centralized? That will depend on several factors of which budget, time-to-market and availability of local resources are but three.

I regularly see the following aspects of global campaigns centralized:

• Creative and copywriting
• Production and resizing
• Media planning and purchase
• Supply chain management
• Transcreation management (but not the transcreation activity)
• SEO
• CRM

As a rough rule of thumb: if you operate in a few countries and have a few products then you can deliver quite happily without going down the centralization route. Most marketing activities can be done for each country, by each country, based on central guidelines. The opposite is obviously true where you operate in 20 plus countries and have several products and continuous campaigns.

The tricky part is moving from one approach to the other!  As for centralized transcreation activity – which is championed by the few – I would, like the cliché, avoid it like the plague. But then again I have never been a big fan of the committee approach to transcreation.

Transcreation – what is it?

Well it will neither offer salvation to the planet nor the sinner.  If you are an international marketer,  working on global advertising or brand development or in the localization business you may have come across the term before.

Here are a few random definitions from around the ‘net:

“…a packet of services aimed at those operating in the advertising sector, including translation, localisation and copy editing services.”

“…is a form of translation, closer to copywriting, resulting in a text linguistically and culturally adapted for its intended audience. Transcreated material is supposed to have the same impact on the target audience as the original source text.”

“… a bundle of services designed for clients operating in the advertising sector. It consists of the complete set of translation, localization and copyediting services. Transcreation is a more complex service as it involves the creativity and discipline of professionals whose core activity is content adaptation.”

Clearer now or not?  I do have a definition of my own to offer but first let’s look at an example.  If you click on my first post the “Happy Birthday” one you will see a great VW ad. The strap line (punchline) reads:

“In advertising, you’re allowed to exaggerate. (that explains the caravan)”

To a British audience what it really says, now take a deep breath, is..

——————————————————————————————————————

“We, VW, are so cool we can take the p*ss in our ads.  Hey, our  ad agency is real cool too.  Yes, we agree anyone that insists on towing a caravan (US: Trailer) is an annoying Muppet and should be banned from all roads, lanes, motorways and streets between the hours of  6:00 am and midnight and is definitely uncool.  However, not if you are driving a VW ‘cos we, at VW,  are cool and look so cool and manly that our 4×4 can tow a jumbo – how cool is that?”

——————————————————————————————————————

A US translation could be: “In advertising everyone exaggerates. (that explains the trailer)”

But does it go any way towards encapsulating the same message as the UK English – maybe you can tell me?

Talking?

Messaging and advertising, are by definition developed,  in a specific cultural environment, carrying their own latent sub-text,blah, blah blah…

Long story, short: if you want to run this across the main EU countries, time and budget will largely dictate your approach. Accurate but straight translation offers a cheap but workmanlike solution while using the Ad. Agency network multiplied by 13 or 26 languages provides a culturally attuned but lengthy and expensive solution.

Hence combine and cross-fertilise the two to get a creative translation more effective than translation and quicker and more economical than the agency network.

Eureka – Transcreation!

Finally, as promised,  here is how we at Wordbank define it:

Wordbank transcreation services adapt rather than translate your marketing and advertising ensuring that, by staying true to the original and reflecting local culture, you achieve maximum impact in each market