Transcreation Services

What is transcreation?

Also known as creative translation, adaptation and cultural adaptation, our transcreation services require not just translation skills, but copywriting as well. The focus of transcreation is not on creating an exact copy of a source document in another language. Instead, it is more about getting the nuances of a brand’s strapline or message to the global marketplace.

Creating engaging, original advertising copy is hard enough in a single language. However, ensuring that it can be understood worldwide is an even trickier proposition. The translators behind our transcreation services are not only experts in translation, but other disciplines as well, and transcreation allows for their other talents and skill sets to shine through.

Transcreation clients will need to provide a brief as they would for any other advertising job, as this service falls in the most creative end of the translation spectrum. We will use this brief to gain a rounded understanding of both your brand as a whole, and the specific campaign we will be working on.

From there, our translation services extend to translating what needs to be translated, and creating entirely new advertising copy which may not be exact translations of the existing words, but will be the most linguistically and culturally appropriate message for your target international audience. We will ensure that our work is back translated so that you can understand how we have chosen to represent your brand, and consult with us on any amendments which need to be made.

The primary difference between our translation and transcreation services is how faithful our work will end up being to the original document. Translation is all about ensuring word for word accuracy to the source text, whereas transcreation is, as the name suggests, a more creative process.

In the process of transcreation, it is more important that the overall tone and concept of the original text is adhered to than the words themselves. There have been some critical errors made through history where major global brands have put their worst foot forwards in other territories when trying to expand their brand there. Think of the transcreation blunder which cost HSBC $10million when their “Assume Nothing” tagline was translated in some countries as “Do Nothing”.

In short, the focus with translation is making sure that the same text can be understood precisely from one language to another. Transcreation services involve a greater sense of freedom for our team, and are more concerned with eliciting the same response from the finished text as from the original.