The role of translation when entering international markets
September 19th, 2011 - News
Companies large and small often see export as a way of strengthening sales performance, and improving profitability. The logic is clear, if you can sell successfully in the UK, surely you can also sell in international markets. Leaving aside product or service specifics, (i.e. suitability for international sale, which is a large topic in itself), translation is often an overlooked “Cinderella” service. Both SMEs and large companies who are new to international trade often overlook its importance. So why would you translate for international markets?
- Legal compliance: many products are required by law to have certain information on pack, or intruction leaflets, or product labelling, or all three. Quite simply, if the information isn’t in the language (or languages) of the country of sale, you will be breaking the law. We translate in several highly regulated areas, most countries require food labelling to be in the local language, care labelling is also highly regulated, as is toy labelling.
- Marketing: many companies never get beyond point 1, electing to get the legal minimum wording translated, if you have a small product, and need to include lots of languages, this approach is very logical, and often unavoidable, but we would argue that marketing is the most compelling use of translation for most products and services. Quite simply, your product may have very compelling features and benefits, but if your customer isn’t aware of them, they are likely to buy something else.
- Brand image: which brand would you trust more as a consumer, a company who had all their packaging in Dutch, French and German (no English), or a brand who had English on pack? At best you may choose the none-English labelled product if it is substantially cheeper, or if it has compelling other aspects to the packaging, such as amazing design. In either case, price or artwork design will have to work really hard to get the sale. As the “majority language” (actually not true, English is the 3rd most spoken first language after Chinese and Spanish); it is easy to overlook this impact, as we aren’t that used to seeing packaging without English.
- Customer Care: how can you offer effective after sales service, and product advice, if it isn’t available in your customer’s language? Companies often fall down here. You may have excellent promotional material and product packaging, but what do you do if a customer phones up with a query? Indeed could they even phone you at all? If you have a none geographic UK customer care number, it may not even work internationally.
If this all sounds very retail focused, we would argue that the same issues apply selling B2B. Again it is easy to assume that the whole world speaks English, but even in a country like Holland, which has a high level of English use, nearly 50% of the population do not speak English, then of the ones that do abilities will vary. Do you really want to limit your target market to a maximum of half the population?
Now a word of warning. Translation will add cost to trading internationally, as will any product adaptation including possible re-brand, repackaging, relabelling etc. There are also the logistical implications of selling in another market. Even if you are a market leader in your space, brand recognition will be much lower where you don’t have a presence. Selling internationally will therefore take time, money and a lot of perseverence.
September 19th, 2011 at 10:27 am
I do agree with your article! Big corporations do not give enough attention to the translation of their product marketing such as slogans: this is when mishaps happen like with Coca-Cola or KFC… It is not like it’s a technical translation, it just requires a bit of imagination and culture knowledge to make sure the same message is passed from a country to another and gets the same reaction.
November 14th, 2011 at 5:19 pm
I couldn’t agree more. Here in Italy, the problem is compounded by the bucket shop translation culture and market. Few agencies insist on using mother tongue translators and those that do pay such a pittance that the general quality of translations is pretty poor. Being a native speaker of English is not the only requisite of a translator – one also needs to be able to write. In the case of translations for marketing purposes one also needs a creative flair for words and the ability to write convincing copy. For this one also needs to have a sound knowledge of the the market and culture of the country the marketing copy is destined for. Sadly, few companies take any of these requirements into consideration when translating internally or commissioning translations from outside agencies. The problem is further compounded by the fact that the general standard of English is so low that those commissioning translations have no way of judging the quality of the delivered translation, as is sadly attested by the often risible English content of websites and marketing materials. However, when even the Italian Chamber of Commerce,the representative body of Italian business, does not deem it necessary to invest in the translation of its English website, magazine and marketing materials (as a quick look at their website will verify) there is little hope of the situation improving. Enterprises here entirely underestimate the damage they are inflicting on their brands through poor translation and marketing. Sadly, public bodies, most particularly those promoting tourism, also fail to understand the negative consequences of poorly translated marketing copy. In fact, I would argue that in most cases translation of marketing materials is the wrong approach: new copy should be written reflecting the culture and business style of the client market. This is rarely even considered. Italy, as as is the case of many European countries, is having to increasingly seek new markets abroad to survive. It’s about time it realized that its future success in attracting these markets will greatly depend on the quality and efficacy of its marketing materials. Somehow, I can’t see this happening any time soon.