To subtitle or not to subtitle?
By Gordon Husbands | Cultural sensitivity, International marcoms | No comment yet
In case you didn’t know, ‘video’ is the new ‘copy’. Sweaty, dishevelled journos hacking out hot words on a satellite terminal and posting incisive articles from the front line of breaking news is boring and old hat. As the updated version of the quote goes, ” A picture speaks a thousand words, but video says it all”.
Never more so than in the corporate promotion world. If you are not posted on YouTube you are not a happening brand. Video is where the action is and everyone is jumping on the bandwagon – well, so all those spam emails tell me anyway.
However, going global with your video raises the hairy problem of whether to dub or subtitle. Clearly it is always going to be cheaper to subtitle, but then is that going to appear really naff to your target audience just when you were trying to convince them your brand is über-cool?
Check out this article by Francesca Riggio and see how different cultures respond to dubbing and subtitling. Assume nothing when it comes to second guessing cultural preferences.
Advertise in Russian or Pay the Penalty!
By Gordon Husbands | Cultural sensitivity, Transcreation | No comment yet
Moscow Times: words such as “sale”, “discount” and “free Wi-Fi”, which regularly appear in advertisements and signage in Moscow, are breaking the law. According to the Moscow Times, “The Federal Anti-Monopoly Service is planning to expand a crackdown on advertising using foreign words, with initial hearings in a spate of recent cases expected this week”.
They may think it's English but it looks like Italian!
In a recent case, the unfortunate owner of Japanese fast-food chain Yaposha got in to trouble for putting up a billboard that said “Happy New Menu” with the words “Happy” and “New” spelled out in English on a building facade. Other recent ‘outrageous’ examples were the use of “New Collection” and “Halloween”.
Хэллоуин is the word for Halloween, which, if you can read Cyrillic, is a straight transliteration of Halloween. There is no Russian equivalent of “All hallows’ e’en”, or the evening that dead spirits come back to walk the earth for one night. Although I wonder how many western kids actually know any more than that it’s a night when you can dress up in a scary outfit and go ‘trick or treating’. Yet another bourgeois, capitalist import adopted by teenage New Russians.
Adwords, TMs and translation
By Gordon Husbands | International marcoms, MSEM | 2 responses so far
Adwords, TMs and translation go together like ‘fire and petrol’ or ‘dictionary and gorilla’. Blasphemy?
Translation Memories (TMs) are an accepted, if not mandatory, part of the web content translation process. Indeed, it’s regarded as nigh on a hanging offence by most corporate procurement departments for any vendor found guilty of not applying TMs to each and every translation project.
Yes, well maintained TMs can reduce translation cost and turnaround time when applied consistently to high volumes of content, both of which are stated and laudable aims for any supply chain manager. But, like the old cliche about crocodiles and swamps, it is easy to lose sight of the reason for translating the online content in the first place.
Adwords Translation – an oxymoron?
By Gordon Husbands | International marcoms, MSEM, Transcreation | 3 responses so far
Good question. While the two words are not quite a full-blown oxymoron, there is an element of conflict if not contradiction.Can or should Adwords be translated or is there a better way?
Search marketing is big and commands big spend in companies large and small with the demand for search analysts reaching the levels that html programmers achieved in the 90s. While the US market clearly leads the global field in terms of the adoption and sophistication of search marketing techniques, international brands are hungry to generate similar improvements in lead-generation and conversion across all their major markets, particularly the growing or more resilient ones.
MT meets Transcreation – not the clash of Titans
By Gordon Husbands | International marcoms, Transcreation | 5 responses so far
The GALA conference plenary session on 11 May started with an MT bang and ended with a donkey wallop! Entitled “The Risks and Rewards of Machine Translation”, the subject matter was always going to delight and irritate in equal measure – strong emotions were stirred. Dion Wiggins of Asia Online, taking full advantage of his significant stage presence, launched into an energetic justification of MT as the natural pinnacle of the Darwinian evolution of translation.
Dion suggested, as you might expect, that the MT spinning jenny, rather than putting the skilled weavers of translation out of a job, would create a whole new, expanding industry surrounding the core commodity of MT.
Volcanic Ash – what has transcreation go to do with it?
By Gordon Husbands | Cultural sensitivity, International marcoms | No comment yet
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.
Email insider interview – more transcreation best practice?
By Gordon Husbands | International marcoms | 2 responses so far
Email marketing plays a huge role in both CRM and business development strategies. It is a marketing tool that is being used across geographic boundaries to increasing effect.
The really cool thing is that not only does it work for the big brands but thanks to the nature of the Internet it can also be deployed by SMEs to equal effect to grab a slice of the global market.
Mind you like any tool there is a brand health warning if not used in a culturally sensitive way. And yes, there is a role for transcreation to make sure that your global eDM has the maximum impact.
Anyway rather than repeat myself see the interview article and comments on email insider.
Transcreation Survey – it’s here, it’s huge and it hits the spot!
By Gordon Husbands | International marcoms | No comment yet
The much anticipated Common Sense Advisory survey ‘Reaching New Markets through Transcreation’ finally hit the digital streets yesterday. I have seen the use of the ‘transcreation’ word both lauded and trashed to equal measure. But what nobody can deny is – especially once you have read the report – that there is a huge amount of transcreation being done everyday however it is labelled.
Why is it being done? Now here this, oh ye Procurements executives – because when it comes to marketing and communications often ‘Translation just isn’t enough!’
Transcreation Survey – it’s here, it’s huge and it hits the spot!
By Gordon Husbands | International marcoms | No comment yet
The much anticipated Common Sense Advisory survey ‘Reaching New Markets through Transcreation’ finally hit the digital streets yesterday. I have seen the use of the ‘transcreation’ word both lauded and trashed to equal measure. But what nobody can deny is – especially once you have read the report – that there is a huge amount of transcreation being done everyday however it is labelled.
Why is it being done? Now here this, oh ye Procurements executives – because when it comes to marketing and communications often ‘Translation just isn’t enough!’
Says who?
Well a plethora of marketing executives, country stakeholders, local channel partners, creative agencies as well as language service providers (but what do they know?)
As the report underlines, global marketing is complex, there are a lot of moving parts, it is not easy but the market opportunity is there if we have the desire and motivation to exploit it.
To be fair it is only in the last decade that the tools have been available and sufficient corporate muscle has been readily applied to the enterprise translation challenge never mind such subtleties as transcreation. Senior management and procurement need to be educated, lobbied and nagged into adding transcreation to the corporate marketing armoury. Plus more multi-variant testing should be applied to help identify the most effective adaptations (very easy with modern WCMS like Ektron) and the results of transcreation should be properly measured so that practical R.O.I can be established.
No - this is only a clue!
There is a simple and effective diagnostic tool for identifying a need for transcreation on page 50 of the report.
If you are in anyways associated with international marketing and want to develop your career this report is for you, follow the signs – go buy, beg, borrow or otherwise procure it now – you will not be disappointed.
STOP PRESS: New Transcreation Survey due out
By Gordon Husbands | Transcreation | No comment yet
I recently participated in an extensive Transcreation survey being run by Common Sense Advisory of Lowell, Mass. in the US and I am reliably informed that their report is due out end of this month (March).
While I am honoured to have been included that’s not the news. What is interesting is that Transcreation is becoming a serious topic (but hopefully not without its humorous side) outside of the world of international advertising. Major international companies, Ad. Agencies and a variety of Language Service Providers have all been consulted – so we can expect a broad church of views
I will be very interested to see what CSA conclude and you can guarantee that some debate will ensue.
Particularly as I note a large number of other translation vendors that suddenly have something to say about ‘transcreation’ on their websites. It’s fine jumping on the bandwagon but the question is can you hold the tune?
