Advertising and marketing only function if they trigger emotions. The best arguments are useless if they fail to evoke joy, sadness, empathy, passion, nostalgia, or other strong feelings in the target audience. Transferring all this to the target audience in a different cultural environment is a particular challenge. With professional transcreation, however, it can be mastered with ease.
The slogan in German is almost perfect: Anyone who hears “Haribo macht Kinder froh …” (Haribo makes children happy…) can immediately complete the slogan and will usually have the melody from the advertisement in their head. The combination of a simple, positive message, a rhyming couplet, and perfect meter made the slogan by the German candy manufacturer into a classic that has stood the test of time.
It was a successful combination that Haribo also wanted to deploy in markets outside of Germany. Since a literal translation – into whatever language – leaves little trace of the effect of the rhyme, Haribo composed some new couplets. In Italy, for example, with “Haribo è la bontà – che si gusta ad ogni età.” In English, the slogan became “Kids and grown-ups love it so – the happy world of Haribo,” and the French read and heard “Haribo c’est beau la vie – pour les grands et les petits.” In Dutch, it became “Haribo maakt kinderen blij – volwassenen horen ook daarbij,” and, in Spanish, “Vive un sabor mágico – ven al mundo Haribo.”
This is an excellent example of successful transcreation for international markets.
Why transcreation is so much more than mere translation and localization
Transcreation can be described as the high art of translation. It not only goes beyond the traditional task of translators but also beyond localization, which involves adapting images and text or entire campaigns to the linguistic and cultural characteristics of the target country or target market.
Transcreation conveys what every marketing or advertising campaign is ultimately always about: emotion. It is therefore a mixture of transcription and creation that demands a great deal from those involved – the transcreators. As well as being proficient in the source and target languages, they must also have an in-depth understanding of the culture of the target country. They must also be able to operate in the creative marketing and advertising environment. Since it can be difficult to find one person who combines all these qualities, transcreation jobs are often taken on by small teams comprising, for example, localization specialists along with native-speaking marketing and advertising copywriters. Naturally, an intensive briefing on the core message, style, and tonality of the marketing materials is essential if the intended impact is to be transferred to new markets.
Best practice: how transcreation works
Since the method has actually been around for much longer than the term itself, there is a whole range of best practices for perfect transcreation. They show the broad range of themes from an individual claim or slogan to the complete reimagination of campaigns, books, or movies. Here’s a brief “best-of” (and “worst-of”) from the world of transcreation:
Lidl
Lidl has used the slogan “Lidl lohnt sich” (Lidl is worth it) in German-speaking countries for many years. In addition to its brevity, the phrase works because of the alliteration of the three “Ls”. Since the two will probably not work together in any other language, the discounter group relies on transcreation. In English, Lidl uses the slogan “Big on Quality, Lidl on Price.” It’s a slogan that not only creates a play on words but obviously also pursues the ulterior motive of becoming a catchphrase.
Intel
Chip giant Intel adapted its “Intel: Sponsors of Tomorrow” slogan specifically for the Brazilian market. After the public responded poorly to the translation into Brazilian Portuguese, surveys revealed that it had been misunderstood to mean that Intel would only keep its promise in the distant future. This ambiguity was rectified with the phrase “Apaixonados pelo futuro” (“Passion for the future”).
McDonald’s
When McDonald’s launched its slogan “I’m lovin’ it” more than 20 years ago, transcreation was a fundamental part of its global branding strategy. Interestingly, the group decided to retain the English version in many countries – for instance, in Austria, where surveys show that English slogans are particularly popular. In Germany, on the other hand, the slogan became “Ich liebe es.” In the Spanish version “Me encanta,” the verb corresponds more closely to the English “like” because the verb “amar” in Spanish has strong romantic associations. The situation is similar with the Chinese version, as the corresponding verb tends not to be used in public there.
Procter Gamble
Consumer goods group Procter Gamble faced a similar challenge to Haribo. The Swiffer sweeper was originally advertised with the slogan “When Swiffer’s the one, consider it done” – yet another perfect symbiosis of a clear statement, rhyme, and catchy meter. The brand came up with a perfect transcreation for the Italian market: “La polvere non dura, perché Swiffer la cattura.”
Apple
Remember the iPod Shuffle? Apple launched this diminutive MP3 player with the slogan “Small Talk”. Like almost all puns, the appealing play on words that relied on the familiar idiom and a highly condensed statement about the size and function of the device could not be translated in this form. Transcreation turned this into perfect adaptations to the language and culture of the target markets, for example, “Ya sabe hablar” (“He can already speak”) for the Spanish market, “Donnez-lui de la voix” (“Let him speak for you”) in France, “Petit parleur. Grand faiseur” (“Little talker. Big doer”) in Canada and “Mira quién habla” (“Look who’s talking”) in Latin America. Each version retains both the short form and the core message almost unchanged.
Footnote: transcreation in pop culture
Transcreation is also used to adapt entire worlds of pop culture. At some point, everybody has probably come across the result of one of the most extensive transcreations: The Walt Disney stories about Donald Duck and Duckburg. The legendary translator into German, Erika Fuchs, was indeed a brilliant transcreator. She gave the classic stories by Carl Barks a plethora of allusions, quotations, idioms, and puns, some of which elevate the target text well above the source text in intellectual terms.
In many cases, the publisher also adapted the names to the respective national languages. The name Scrooge McDuck in the original, for example, combines the allusion to the misanthropic and miserly Ebenezer Scrooge in Charles Dickens’ Christmas story with the cliché of the penny-pinching Scotsman. Since this combination does not have the same associations in German, he was simply given a decidedly old-fashioned name – and became “Onkel Dagobert” (Uncle Scrooge) instead.
It was a similar story with Donald’s three nephews: only English speakers can pronounce the names Huey, Dewey and Louie easily. While they were simply given the funny-sounding artificial names Tick, Trick, and Track in German, the names used in Italian (Qui, Quo, and Qua) even sound like the sounds made by a small duck.
Footnote: transcreation in movies
One of many examples of the intensive use of transcreation in movies is the Pixar animated movie “Inside Out“ from 2015 in which a young child refuses to eat broccoli – a vegetable that has roughly the same reputation in the USA that spinach has in Germany. For the Japanese market, broccoli was replaced by bell peppers, which are considered a classic food that no child wants to eat in that country.
In another scene, an elephant deciphers the text on a danger sign by slowly pointing its trunk at each of the letters. Naturally, the text was translated into the respective national languages. However, the animators also remembered to pay attention to the reading direction of some of these languages – with the result that the elephant now correctly starts pointing from right to left in certain translated versions.
Creative translation, painfully absent
But let’s get back to the area of marketing. The history of communication is liberally peppered with examples where transcreation would have been extremely helpful.
Translation does not equal transcreation
Many a brand has succumbed to the false promises of literal translation. Kentucky Fried Chicken experienced this when it had its legendary slogan “finger-lickin’ good” literally translated into Chinese. Unfortunately, the result was a suggestion to eat your own fingers. In the 1970s, Swedish company Electrolux actually advertised its vacuum cleaners in the USA with the slogan “Nothing sucks like Electrolux.” This colossal faux pas was probably due to a lack of familiarity with English slang at the time.
Cultural pitfalls
However, cultural realities can sometimes also cause problems. At least, they can if proper research is not carried out. Of all the companies, it was McDonald’s, the master of transcreation, which made this mistake when it advertised a Halloween strawberry ice cream edition. What was at heart a funny slogan “Sundae Bloody Sundae” was merely intended as an homage to the famous U2 song. The fact that it is about Bloody Sunday, a terrorist atrocity whose traumatic legacy in Northern Ireland endures to this day, was a subtlety that those who designed the campaign clearly failed to notice. However, customers in Northern Ireland certainly did.
The attempt by Procter Gamble to promote Pampers diapers in Japan was less dramatic but still unsatisfactory. The packaging displayed a stork delivering a baby – a well-known symbol in this part of the world. However, this is not the case in Japan, where babies are carried in oversized peaches.
What really matters: finding the right language provider
Adapting campaigns to the specific needs and expectations of another culture is definitely a job for professionals. Rewriting and reimagining the entire brand message for a target market requires the right partners. To find them, you need to ask the following questions:
What references can the translation agency provide for successful transcreations?
Do the employees cover all the target languages and do they also have a perfect command of the source language?
Do the transcreators really understand the mentality, idiosyncrasies, and habits – as well as political and historical facts – of the target country?
Do they have experience working with creative agencies and suitable references?
