As businesses globalize, branding becomes a trickier challenge. What do you do about the translation that arises as part of your branding efforts? Do you brand separately for your home country and overseas countries? These are not easy choices. Marketing methods can make or break your branding.

In this post, we will go over how to properly convey your brand purpose through transcreation, a technique commonly used in global business branding.

Easy-to-Make Marketing Mistakes

When you are thinking about bringing a foreign brand into your home country, or taking your home country’s brand into overseas markets, one of the first things you may think of is translating your marketing copy. A common mistake here is to take your native language copy and translate it as is, or to take overseas copy and translate it directly into your native language. Unnatural or off-putting turns of phrase, generational differences between your home country and overseas target demographics, or branding that is too focused on the universal often leads branding efforts to fail. This is why it is important to optimize for local conditions. Just translating marketing copy is not enough to make a success of a global business’s branding.

Understanding the Local Target Demo Through Localization and Culturalization

Changing text to optimize it to local conditions is referred to as localization or “culturalization.” To understand the local target audience, you have to understand the commonalities and differences between people in your home country and the local target demographic overseas by comparing and contrasting the two.

In Kouki Kuboyama’s and Satoshi Kawasaki’s Brand Culturalization, the writers offer “culture/tradition/religion,” “life courses,” and “generational ideas” as three axes we can use to deepen our understandings of different cultural spheres.

1) Culture/Tradition/Religion
Are there any major negative connotations to your brand name or expressions from the point of view of the local culture, traditions or religion(s)?

Is there a different conceptualization of the five senses held by people in your home country and the local people overseas?

2) Life Courses
What events are you treating as the points of entry (i.e. motivations for starting to use your products) for your brand in the life courses of your customers?

3) Generational Ideas
Given local generational trends and ideas, which generation of consumers is your brand most likely to resonate well with? What shared values does that generation have?

Another important point is how local people interpret the global trends that are related to your brand.

Source: Brand Culturalization (available in Japanese only)

What is “Brand Purpose?”

“Brand purpose” is “your brand’s reason for existing in society.” It is the idea that gets consumers on the side of your business or brand, and wins them over as fans through some value beyond the “functional value” that the product holds. Brand purposes, which vary with the life stages and lifestyles of consumers, go beyond products and services to touch consumers lives by resonating with the social issues close to them. This makes it critical for you to narrow your focus down to just the right target demographic. Branding will also be based on this brand purpose, so creating an image that resonates with consumers and appeals to them based on it is important.

Source: https://www.hakuhodo.co.jp/uploads/2021/01/20210125.pdf (available in Japanese only)

How Do You Convey Brand Purpose?

Brand purpose can vary according to all kinds of factors such as nationality, generation and gender. Companies need to work to make their visions, management philosophies and brand attitudes resonate with consumers, and to make these link up with their marketing through not only their products and services, but also their management and business activities, in order to appeal to their target demographics.

Another important point in accurately conveying brand purpose is that, as part of global business, companies need to adjust to local conditions. That is why, to get your brand purpose across accurately, you need to go beyond just translating your marketing copy and use transcreation that matches with your different target demographics, whether in your home country or overseas, and that resonates with consumers.

Transcreation at Toin

Toin’s transcreation is a translation service that combines deep knowledge of the culture and customs of foreign countries of your target market with high quality writing to accurately convey your brand purpose. We are ready to support you in branding your products whether for audiences overseas or in your home country by offering appealing translations that have been suitably localized to each market, and transcreations that are just right for you.

With exceptional writing skills and high-quality translation that is the product of a translation agency with a long history, combined with transcreation that conveys your message, beyond just the words, Toin can win over your target demographics and help lead your business to success. Consider Toin’s transcreation services to help bring your international marketing to life.

Summary

For half a century, Toin has been providing a broad range of language services that meet client needs, from translations that are strictly faithful to the original, to transcreation. We enable you to use your preferred translation methods and promote your company through optimal marketing methods, branded in a way that suits your target demographics, areas, and products. Through translations that combine localization and transcreation, we match your company to local characteristics and accurately convey your brand purpose in local terms.

If you are considering translation services, starting with transcreation, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us at Toin.