Media types

The value of corporate communication and brand image cannot be underestimated.

The news may be hot off the press but if its release is confined to one language, the marketing message will fail to reach the necessary demographic that will ensure broader communication.

Similarly, the translation of advertising copy is not an aspect of a brand or product campaign that should be left as an afterthought. If such copy is translated by translators who do not have creative experience within the given industry, the end product will not convey the correct message or the requisite image or impact, making the meticulous preparations and investment given to a brand launch or promotion almost pointless.

Website copy represents another investment that may fail to make a proper return unless due consideration is given to the target markets' preferred languages. Not only do potential clients have to be able to understand the site at a superficial level; they have to be able to be persuaded. Simply appearing near the top of a search engine ranking is not enough; the goal has to be to entice the potential customer in, engage with him and convince him of your proposition.

Translation for the marketing, media and communications industry demands a creative edge to successfully promote and sell to clients overseas. This in turn requires the expertise of a professional translation service provider who is able to select in-country translators with the requisite skills. The keyword here is transcreation, a speciality that is not within the remit of every translator, nor indeed of every translation service provider. Transcreation is a form of non-literal translation geared specifically towards the target readership in a foreign country. The target copy has two requirements to fulfil: firstly, it needs to convey the same dynamic as the source copy, to capture the inherent quality of the service or product in question. Secondly, and more importantly, it needs to have the linguistic and cultural feel of a text that has been specifically written for the country in question. As such, transcreation may involve marketing and advertising slogans, colloquial language, wordplay, or humour, and it will always involve nuance and subtleties.

This less literal form of translation is often also required when advertising copy needs to fit within the confines of a graphic layout or match the visual impact of the source language or document. Translation from one language to another invariably involves expansion or contraction in terms of number of words and word-length. Transcreation often has a part to play here, by avoiding page overruns and oversetting (or undersetting) by creatively shrinking (or sometimes expanding) the text, while maintaining the essential message of the source.

So much for the written word; that represents just a fraction of the media industry's translation requirements.

Adverts often require translation with a view to recording voiceovers using native-speakers for foreign markets. Companies also use videos with foreign-language voiceovers as a means of delivering corporate messages or training to overseas colleagues or of marketing to their overseas clients. The translation of scripts for voiceovers has its own set of specific requirements, notably adherence to time codes and length of target output.

One market showing strong growth over recent years is video game localisation. The video game market is now so huge and globalised that multilingualism has to be built in from the outset, rather than added as an afterthought once the English version has hit the streets. Nowhere in the world are customers willing to accept their own-language versions as inferior to the English or Japanese ones, and nor should they have to now that the linguistic and the logical aspects of game creation have been largely separated out from each other.

With the media industry in constant development, marketing strategies, new trends, audience attitudes, experiences and expectations are evolving in tandem, and with them, the needs and opportunities for speaking to customers in their own language.