Click to watch Fiat 500 Seduction

This high-trending viral ad for the Fiat 500 Abarth needs absolutely no translation, even though the monologue is in Italian. The target demographic is very clearly boys.  Entitled “You’ll never forget the first time you see one “, the ad plays on every heterosexual young man’s fantasy, and probably the nostalgic older man’s as well.

The buzz started mid-week on 14th November, peaking on the 17th but not tailing off until the weekend. What is really interesting is how this buzz was reflected in language, as can be seen in this graphic.

Not surprisingly, the Italians  picked it up quite quickly, but there was also sizeable interest in Romania and Spain. While these two countries share Latin as a common language root, I  doubt whether language was the basis of the appeal. Indeed, as it turns out, the model/actress is actually Romanian – Catrinel Menghia.  Maybe she’s famous in Spain as well?

According to PRNewswire, “this digital spot made its debut at the 2011 Los Angeles Auto Show to hundreds of journalists and then was posted to the FIAT brand’s YouTube site. Without having ever been aired on television or cable networks, it has rapidly spread through the web and gained global attention.”

Fiat 500 Abarth – Seduction

If you want to know what she’s saying, see below, but in my opinion subtitling or a voice-over on this ad would be doubly redundant, although I notice the blogosphere was quickly filled with people (guys) asking what she was saying –  Oye vay!

“What are you looking at? Huh!? What are you looking at?! Are you undressing me with your eyes? Poor guy… you cannot help it? Is your heart beating? Is your head spinning? Do you feel lost thinking that I could be yours forever?”

Actually, the car does look rather better in the flesh than it appears in this photograph, but then again, the objective of the ad is to sell the cachet now and the car later.

Clearly, retaining the Italian without subtitles can work for Western Europe and probably most Latin countries. However, for markets like China, Japan, Russia and the Gulf, some sensitive and creative subtitling will be necessary. But even in these markets, the whole Italian character of the brand would be lost without the Italian voice and gestures.  Even if the actress is Romanian.

Now that needs transcreation!

In my company – Wordbank – and many other places, real transcreation is quietly going on every day, often unheralded.  However, it is not a mass-market offering that should be applied to every marketing or advertising campaign element every time. Certainly it should not be confused with or applied interchangeably with what tends to be called ‘marketing translation’ or even with ‘translation’.

Transcreation is a service that should be applied with the same selectivity that is typically applied to Business Class travel, luxury hotel accommodation or choosing to use a toll road rather than the public highway.

For us normal human beings, not yet in the Abramovich or Soros class, there will always be times when we have sound reasons for using any one of the above, but sparingly rather than every day. The obvious exception would be a pure play advertising company where 90% of output is creative, making transcreation a necessity for any international activity.

So how, then, should we define ‘marketing translation’? What is its scope and when should it be applied?

All marketing campaigns have a marketing communications (marcoms) objective, usually couched in terms of getting a specific demographic to take a desired action as a result of seeing a marcom piece. For example: call a number, subscribe to a newsletter, select one product or brand over another.

What we buy and how we buy it is very rarely a logical decision-making process. It is influenced by our psychology, previous experiences, awareness and brand perception among other things.

For most purchases outside of the Snickers and soap powder arena, there is a common buying cycle which broadly requires more detail as we approach the point of purchase. Starting with, ” Oh what a funky, cool brand Apple is” down to, “Do I really want to splurge my hard-earned cash on an iPad2 with 3G or shall I go for the new Kindle? Or I could just upgrade my laptop“. The final decision requires answers to several questions not satisfied by a punchy tag line (apart from for the raging, must-have-the-latest-gadget freak).

Gordon’s Guidelines for the transcreation decision

So here are my guidelines on how to decide when to use transcreation for international marketing communications:

1. Slogans – You should transcreate slogans, banners, ad headlines, tag lines and strap lines, which are all high visibility and need to generate an impact – often an emotional one and where the response is highly subjective. For example, McDonald’s is running a series of coffee promotions on UK TV channels which have a hint of Starbucks about them. The creative itself is pretty good and not ‘cheesy’, but the inevitable McDonald’s tag line “I’m lovin’ it” and the whistle at the end of the advert is very American, very cheesy and grates on my more sober, British nerves. In other words, it provokes a very subjective response on my part. I know they won’t, but maybe McDonald’s should consider transcreating “I’m lovin’ it”.
2. Body Text – After the glitzy, catchy, compelling headline comes the descriptive body text, which must expand, explain and substantiate the claims made by the tag lines and headlines. This copy may run to a few hundred words and requires idiomatic, resonant ‘marketing’ translation. It is also important that consistency in messaging is maintained over the many instances where the same message may appear across marketing collateral and content. This requires a process, a well-established approach and relevant, skilled resources. A sound marketing translation based on well-established style guides and approved local terminology should suffice 80% of the time.
3. Disclaimers and Ts & Cs – Most advertising, offers and promotions also involve some informational, technical or legal copy such as technical features, where to buy, prices, discounts, how to select the right option etc. This requires an accurate, often literal translation combined with appropriate terminology and is generally covered by the basic translation-proofreading service you get when you buy ‘translation’ or post-edited machine translation.

It is never a good idea to confuse any of the above or to try to do category 1 with category 3 resources and processes.

A few additional categories:

- Jokes always need careful transcreation and may not be culturally appropriate, so be prepared for a major dilution of your side-splitters.

- Film dialogue tracks, poetry and lyrics require a very special talent in excess of transcreation.

- Video/TV ad  scripts require a combination of a good transcreation and proper, skilled voice-over talent.

If you have any questions feel free to contact me – I’m the one on the left.

Finally, as the old saying goes: a picture paints a thousand words. Therefore, to better make my point, I have added a full new page to the blog site wherein ‘real examples’ of transcreation in action can be found.

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?

I knew it was such a strong coincidence that someone,  somewhere would seize the day.

In this instance it was  BBDO,  Shanghai that came up with up an immaculate synthesis of two cultures for Gillette.

You can read the the whole article on Adage Global News.

Timing is everything:  Chinese New Year and St. Valentine’s day only comes around once every 50 years.  So by the time we have another  opportunity like this we will probably all be fluent in Mandarin.

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The wardrobe malfunction

Witness the infamous and shocking (was it really?) Janet Jackson exposed nipple incident at  Super Bowl XXXVIII with Justin Timberlake in 2004!

Accident or deliberate?

This year’s commercial break  has again got the ad. industry buzzing – LinkedIn was awash with comment almost immediately and Adage soon ran the story.
“Does Coke’s Super Bowl Ad Look a Lot Like Old Israeli Dairy Spot?“

To many Israelis this ad and the music look very similar to an ad run in Israel for Yotvata, a dairy in the Israeli desert.  And yes, it was for another cold,  refreshing drink.

Were Coke’s  agency of record – Wieden & Kennedy- just being ‘transcreative’ or have they moved into the murky world of plagiarism?

Coke’s take on it certainly gives pause for thought:

“When we created the Coca-Cola ‘Sleepwalker’ commercial, we and our agency were unaware of this other ad,” said Coke spokeswoman Susan Stribling. “Now that we’ve seen the ad, we think both commercials are equally entertaining. While the two share a few common elements, any similarities are coincidental and unintended.”

Ms. Stribling added that the use of the same song in the ad is an “interesting coincidence” but the selection of the tune for “Sleepwalker” is “consistent with how we’ve chosen music for ads we’ve aired during the Super Bowl for the past three years.”

The discussion thread on LinkedIn International Advertising Association took rather a harsher line and a stronger view than “interesting coincidence”.

Judge for your self:

If the flash does not load go to this YouTube link.

Agreed it is difficult to totally guard against incidents like this, but when it comes to copyright there could always be an aggressive, litigious media-owner’s lawyer who just happens across your ‘work’.

As part of our Conquest service one of the questions that we recommend asking is: ” Is this tag-line similar to anything you have seen before or is the phrase in common usage in your country?”. It just might ring a few alarm bells.

Can’t wait for next year!

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