Are you interested in optimizing your marketing and advertising reach to a global audience? When translation isn’t enough, you need transcreation.

It may sound obvious, but different cultures have different cultural touch-points. For instance, an advertising campaign centered around Santa Claus for the holiday season may work well in Western countries, but many countries’ populations do not celebrate Christmas. In those markets, ads that feature Santa Claus are unlikely to evoke the same emotional response as they do in cultures where kids grow up associating Santa Claus with the holiday spirit and gift giving.

This is where transcreation comes in. Transcreation is the process of recreating content for a new target audience, changing elements of the material and the messaging as needed to keep the same overall emotional impact. Here are some more reasons transcreation so important when conducting international business.

Different Values

An image that is perfectly acceptable in one country can cause an uproar in another. Different cultures have different values, and advertising campaigns may need to be redone to avoid offense or simply make sense. An advertisement featuring models in bikinis would not be ideal for a conservative country where modest attire is the norm.

Localized Marketing Performs Best

Studies have shown that consumers prefer to be presented with information in their native language and localized imagery.

A 2014 study from Common Sense Advisory found that “more local language content throughout the customer experience leads to a greater likelihood of purchase.” And while language is important, a picture is worth a thousand words. People identify more strongly with marketing and advertising when they see themselves represented. Use of images with local models to reflect local design preferences are likely to perform better than a generic ad to appeal to the masses.

Multilingual SEO

If your business is online, you’ve likely invested some time and money in SEO. Otherwise, how can you expect that your customers will find you online?

As the internet becomes more multilingual, users expect to be able to find their site using their preferred keywords in their own languages. Transcreation ensures the copy on your site is written to appeal to local search engine users and targets the right keywords in each market. Content that is culturally relevant in your target audience has lower bounce rates, increased time on site, and better SERP rankings.

If you care about how effective your content is in English, then you should also care about how effective it is in other languages and cultures. Quality translation from professional translators can keep your brand on-point by avoiding translation errors. Transcreation goes a step further by optimizing your content for the target market, where ever that may be. If you are ready to take your business to the next level internationally, it’s time to invest in transcreation.

Need help with a transcreation project? We are available to help. Let’s Get in Touch!