Exploring Transcreation – A Guide
Transcreation is a transformative translation process whereby content is creatively adapted by the translator.
The process tends to be used for marketing, branding and advertising projects, or creative/narrative-led products, where the goal is to drive an action, or form a strong emotional connection.
Rather than a precise word-for-word translation of source language text, transcreated content maintains the tone, meaning and sentiment of the source language message, but is adapted to consider the nuances of the target language and the culture surrounding it.
In short, it’s an essential process when translating creative content for international markets.
The Benefits of Transcreation
- Enables you to transcend differences in linguistic and cultural nuances and geographic-based marketing preferences, to develop a connection with, drive actions from, and communicate impactfully with non-native speaking, international audiences.
- As professional copywriting services offer you the assurance that your source language material has been skilfully and appropriately created, transcreation provides you with the confidence that the messaging of your translated content has been carefully, creatively, and appropriately adapted to maximise its effectiveness. – After all, what’s the point in dedicating time and money working with professionals to fine-tune your source language content, for it to lose its effectiveness in every other market, fail to resonate with the audience, and achieve its goal?
- Increases international sales with targeted approaches to specific markets.
- Maximises the efficiency of your international marketing, branding, advertising and PR.
- Boosts your credibility and trust with customers and clients in foreign markets.
Exploring Applications
At Andiamo, we use transcreation in applications where a straight translation of the source text wouldn’t make sense in the target market, and where audiences would be able to tell that the translated content wasn’t originally intended for them.
In terms of content/documentation this might be:
- Websites
- Social media content
- Video subtitles
- App/software content
- PR pieces/placements
- Brochures and catalogues
We also lean on transcreation for translation projects related to products and packaging too:
- Packaging containing puns or rhyming words, which need to be recreated from scratch in the target language, while maintaining the same concept as the source language.
- Adapting the names of people and places in games to be relevant and appropriate in the target territory.
- Adapting music, titles and content in games, like those in the murder mystery category, to be appropriate and relevant to the target audience.
Translation Vs Transcreation
“Straight” translation, where terminology is translated with absolute precision, is pivotal and enormously valuable to organisations in technical sectors like medical, engineering, manufacturing, automotive, legal, financial and beyond.
However, in more creative applications, like those we explored in the previous section, transcreation offers a further layer of value, by adapting your content to ensure its efficacy in different international markets.
Using “straight” translation in these creative applications would lead to lower quality translations, where the lack of territory-specific consideration would be glaringly apparent to international audiences, making the content ineffective in achieving its goal.
How is it Different from Localisation?
Localisation is the adaptation of content to be culturally appropriate for a specific region, to ensure it resonates with audiences in that territory.
Sounds like it has a lot in common with transcreation, right? However, the distinction is clear and important.
Localisation – Is where translated output has its language, currency symbols, time, dates, measurements, imagery, colours, layouts, music and more adapted to be culturally appropriate.
Transcreation – Is a combination of translation and creative copywriting, where the sentiment of the original message is retained, but creatively reimagined to retain the source language’s original intent and emotion in the target language. While localised content is “tweaked”, transcreated content may be entirely reimagined for its international audience, and therefore very different to the source content. This is why selecting the most creative partner is so important.
Our Approach
- At Andiamo, we believe the best creative translation results come from the best brief, so we begin by developing a deep understanding of your project and your goals.
- Identify the target markets and audiences.
- Closely review the source language content.
- Conduct transcreation while closely considering your brand guidelines.
- Checks and QA processes.
- As a one-stop-shop for all your translation needs, we also offer a typesetting service where we transform translated output into print and reader-ready brochures, catalogues, packaging and instructions.
Gold Service
We recommend our gold service for this kind of project, as it provides you with the creativity of multiple skilled, sector-specialist translators, who also check the translated output. It’s our ultimate QA solution.
Stage 1 – A translator who has worked or trained in your sector conducts the first round of creative translation.
Stage 2 – A second sector-specialist translator conducts a thorough proofread/revision, checking the transformation of the source language content and the accuracy of the translated output.
Stage 3 – Our skilled in-house linguists conduct final quality and accuracy checks using industry-leading QA tools.
Why Andiamo?
We’ve been supporting businesses like yours with high-quality transcreation services for over 35 years.
Specialist Translators: Andiamo! works with only the most skilled, experienced, vetted, mother tongue, translation specialists who have been individually assessed for their transcreation skills.
PM: You’ll be assigned a dedicated project manager to help guide your project.
Translation Consistency : We use translation memory software to support the consistency of terminology and offer you discounts on future projects.
Accreditations: We are audited internally and externally to maintain our ISO Standards (9001:2015, 17100:2015, 14001:2015, 13485:2016) and demonstrate our commitment to quality.
Contact our team today to discuss your unique translation requirements.
