Advertising translation is a process where an advertisement originally created for one audience is translated to resonate with another audience that speaks a different language. The conversion of ads, commercials, and promotions often calls for taking into account the cultural nuances in translation. The final outcomes should represent your brand image and connect deeply with your target audience.
While the term ad translation may look very simple to you, it covers a range of different tasks. If we look at adverts, they also vary widely. Companies around the world use social media ads, radio adverts, TV advertisements, printed media ads, and more. Some businesses will use paid ads on other companies’ websites to boost their traffic. While other businesses will use them as an excellent advertising tool on their own website.
A translation agency when working on these advertisements, they don’t just handle the text but the audiovisual elements of the advert as well. Their translators will translate, localize, and if necessary transcreate the advertisement so that it best suits the needs of a target audience.
Sometimes when you’re translating an ad into a language such as French, you must adapt it for different versions of it. Therefore, when you approach a translation company for English to French translation services, they should ask whether you need to target Quebec French, American French, or African French. Only when you know where your intended users live, you will be able to produce ad translations that are locally relevant.
3 things to consider for advertisement translation
So, you have decided to integrate translation services into your global advertising. Here are some of the top things you need to keep in mind during the translation process of your advertising materials.
Context
Advertising is like an act of artistic expression. A successful advert is one that conveys exactly what your brand stands for. Plus, it also tells readers or viewers why they need your services and what are some of your USPs (unique selling points). It should do these points at the very least. However, this information should be available in an interesting and memorable format for end users.
To achieve this feat, many brands opt for pop culture references or humor. Which are very complex elements that don’t undergo translation easily.
This is where you need to give utmost importance to context. Your advert will hit the mark if it fits the cultural context of your intended audience. But when it comes to context, we can break it down into three different parts.
i) Linguistic context
Be very careful about the use of language in your translated advert. If it involves clumsy phrases or the choice of words isn’t good, it can offend your users. Similarly, it can give your brand a ridiculous look. You also need to pay attention to how the snippets of your copy will sound like.
ii) Cultural context
In most cases, an advert includes nuances specific to its original culture. Thus, users who don’t share the same culture with you will find it tough to understand the cultural and socio-historical context ingrained into your communications. For this reason, you need to be extremely careful about such intricacies that different audiences may find painful to identify.
iii) Rhetorical context
You create an advertisement that makes use of persuasive language. It will create the desired impact unless it balances well against the knowledge of your brand the audience has. That said, you need to factor in rhetorical context. Consumers should find it easy to join your cause.
Research
Does your advertising make any claims? You need to look at whether or not those claims are accurate in the target market as well. For instance, you’re a US-based company that sells beard oil. But now you want to branch out to one of the largest trade partners of your country, China. It would be unwise on your part if you simply opt for Chinese translation services for your advert. Why? Because your research or survey includes some statistics and you don’t know whether they will be applicable in the Chinese market.
Let’s say your survey finds out that x% of men wear beards in the U.S. Now, you will have to re-run this survey to come up with the exact percentage in your target market. Otherwise, you may not be able to reap the best rewards of your investment.
Channel
When translating your business-critical ads, you must look at the marketing channels popular in your target region. Would you be effective in reaching out to your potential customers through an email campaign or print media? Chances are that social networks could be best for your ads. So, you should know which social platform has widespread use in the market you want to crack into.
Having answers to such questions will also play a critical role in what type of advertisement translation you should look for. From ad copy to the imagery, everything will come under the influence of these decisions.
Summary
In this blog, we started with a brief introduction to advertisement translation. It deals with the adaptation of adverts from one language to another.
Then we mentioned some of the important things to consider before you actually start translating your adverts. We talked about linguistic, cultural, and rhetorical contexts. Also, we mentioned the significance of your research work and the marketing channel that best serves your target demographics. Keep all these points in mind, and you shall be moving in the right direction.