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10 Tips on How to Perfect Advertising Translation

Brands produce advertising materials to make people aware of their products, inform their target audience about the features of their products and encourage consumers to buy them. International brands are either producing advertising materials in the territories where they operate and sell their products, or hire an agency to handle their advertising translation.

In previous years, many companies used their locally produced advertising materials (usually in English) when marketing to foreign markets. But that has changed. With advertising translation, brands can have accurate and grammatically correct translations that are appropriate for their target markets.

Working with a professional translation company for advertising ensures that you will be getting translations that consider your original copy. The translation agency will translate your concept, message, or idea instead of just the advertising copy, which will help you to communicate better with your target audiences. A good advertising translator will take into account the different cultural nuances to ensure that your advertising message resonates with the local market.

How do you make advertising translation perfect?

When a company engages in international marketing, it is vital to have advertising translation because the company deals with different target audiences that have different needs, preferences, and expectations. With the linguistic and cultural barriers to overcome, the issues can be addressed by translation. What the translation agency needs is to make the advertising translation perfect for each market.

Ensure that the advertising translation is effective, with these tips.

  1. Define your goal for each of your target audiences, as this will be the basis of the individual translation.
  2. Research your audience. You should thoroughly study each target audience so that you can understand why they are unique and what challenges the translators will face translating content for each target group. You should be very specific when identifying your target audiences.
  3. Adaptation is necessary since each target group has its set of needs and preferences, which your advertising should address.
  4. Know where and how to reach your audience. There are several avenues for traditional and online advertising. Each medium is different, and your research about your target audience will let you know which mediums will be effective for them. You should also consider website translation, blogs, and email marketing.
  5. It might be more effective to choose localization so that your entire website and its content are in the local language that is familiar to our target market. This will support all your advertising efforts, enhancing consumer information and the salient features of the product. Even similar languages have their own differences. For example, Americans are familiar with ”flashlight,” but the British will not understand the term because they use the word ”torch” instead.
  6. Choose the right translation company. Ensure that you hire a company that has experience in advertising translation. Your brand will benefit from their experience. Ensure that you have the right goals and your advertising messages are defined.
  7. While a professional translation company has a quality assurance team and all its translations are proofread and edited, you can also have an independent native speaker review the translated content.
  8. Check the analytics when your local advertising campaign is launched so that you can measure the ads’ performance. You can use the analytics to optimize your target results.
  9. Consider the total approach. Advertising translation should not only focus on translating the text. Slight changes in the layout, the use of different graphics and designs can make a big difference in catching the attention of your international target audiences.
  10. Check what your competitors are doing and aim to be steps ahead of them.

Translation of advertising materials

Translation plays a big role when you are dealing with international advertising. While English is the language of business, do not expect every person anywhere in the world to speak English. To become an effective international advertiser, you have to give your audience the right information at the right time in the language they speak. Even if you have a wonderful product that can provide solutions to consumers’ problems, if they cannot understand your message, you will not be able to sell your products to your local target market.

Advertising translation mistakes

The importance of research cannot be denied when you want to advertise internationally. Many big-name brands suffered dire consequences resulting from mistakes in advertising translation. Advertising translation mistakes are costly. The cost is not only financial. It can also lead to lost market opportunities, lost trust in the brand, and broken partnerships.

  1. Beer brand Coors intended to deliver the message that drinking its beer will not result in ”beer belly” with its slogan, “Let it loose.” But when it was translated into Spanish, the message became ”Suffer from diarrhea.”
  2. Electrolux had an advertising campaign for their vacuum cleaner for the UK market, with the slogan, “Nothing sucks like Electrolux”. But when the company used the same campaign for the American market, their sales were not as expected because Americans perceived that the product is of low quality.
  3. Revlon once launched a perfume with a camellia scent for the international market. The lack of market research led to it not performing well in the Brazilian market. This is because the camellia flower is associated with funerals in Brazil.
  4. Mercedes-Benz introduced a line for the international market that the company named Bensi. However, it did not resonate well with the Chinese consumers because the name translates into ”rush to die” in Chinese.

These advertising errors only show that market research is essential and working with a professional translation company is critical to get everything right.

Whenever you need advertising translation services, give eTS a call.

eTranslation Services provides accurate advertising translations to various clients in different parts of the world, using our extensive network of native-speaking translators who are subject matter experts, to make your translations more credible and appropriate to your target audience. We also provide localization services, to ensure that your international advertising campaigns are well-supported. Reach us easily by email through [email protected] or by calling us at (800) 882-6058.

 

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