Marketing Translation

Professionally translating marketing and advertising documents is essential for any company wishing to expand into the international market. The importance of this lies in the fact that a demand-generation strategy is as important as knowing how to adapt the content of promotional brochures, websites, blogs and social media posts to the languages spoken in the countries in which you want to expand your brand.

The challenges of marketing translation

When a company embarks on a search for new business opportunities, it needs to make major efforts in demand generation. Whether acquiring new customers or retaining and building loyalty among existing customers, the following are required:

• Research the market extensively in order to define target segments.
• Create advertising campaigns, applying large doses of creativity.

These two tasks are even more important when seeking new business niches in foreign markets. To achieve this, text localisation is needed in translations, with the aim of expressing content through language that is appropriate for the target audience.

In fact, any translator or agency who is expert in marketing knows that there are expressions, references and concepts that should not be used in some countries. Each culture has its peculiarities and a formula that works in one territory might in fact be frowned upon in another. Consequently, localisation is not just recommended but is essential when translating advertising related texts.

The role of the professional translator in marketing and advertising

International translators handling the translation of advertising and marketing oriented content must fully understand the cultural aspects of the country in which a campaign is to be launched, in order to ensure that translated expressions do not mean something undesirable in the target language.

Similarly, localising advertising copy also involves rebranding. That is: re-formulating slogans and brand names to avoid confusion or misunderstanding among the target audience.There are certain expressions or words, whose meaning changes completely in different languages or cultures.

Some example to illustrate this include looking at car names that, for obvious reasons, did not end up being marketed in Spain or did not enjoy great popularity. This is the case with the Nissan Moco, the Ford Corrida, the Mitsubishi Pajero and the Lancia Marica - all of which have undesirable connotations or negative meanings in Spanish. It's hard to imagine that a Spanish marketing agency would have launched these brand names and this demonstrates how important local knowledge and understanding are.

Professional translators who are expert in marketing and work with sanscrit understand these cultural details and are aware of how important it is to approach advertising texts appropriately, adapting them to the linguistic habits of the countries into which the client's business wishes to expand.