Blog: Creative and Marketing Translation Tips

Marketers are well-versed in using emotion to convey a message—but does that emotional knowledge differ when our marketing spans multiple cultures?

The challenge of how to communicate across regions is not a new one. But one aspect of comms that the pandemic has amplified is the need to think both globally and locally.

The translation of marketing slogans is a specialist skill. Copywriters can spend hours agonising over the perfect headline for your brand, so the last thing you need is that being lost in translation.

UGC is a great way to boost customer engagement, hear genuine feedback and create a buzz around your business. Research by Offerpop found that websites which featured user content saw a 20% increase in return visitors.

They say the best-laid plans often go awry – a sentiment very true for the past 12 months. For marketing professionals the pandemic meant doing away with annual strategies, cancelling events and rethinking messaging and creative material.

How do you navigate international marketing during a pandemic when every country – even some individual regions within those countries – has been impacted differently?

With Covid-19 very much still present in our lives, at Comtec we’ve spent a lot of time recently reflecting on the good, the bad and the thankfully not too ugly from the past 10 months.

When HSBC launched the campaign ‘Assume Nothing’ into new markets, they made a huge oversight. Their tagline, which they had been using for over 5 years, mistranslated to ‘Do Nothing’ in many territories.

We asked our clients for their top tips to help you streamline your translation process and get better results from your marketing. Here’s their advice: