Transcreation

In short, transcreation is creative translation for the advertising industry. Although it’s been around for a while, it’s becoming increasingly popular and demanded. Here are some transcreation facts:

• Transcreation is a creative process. Translators become copywriters with a high level of creativity, an attractive (writing) style and a passion for words. They become ‘transcreators’;
• Unlike translation, where the goal tends to be to inform, in transcreation the goals are to attract, to convince and, ultimately, to sell;
• Reaching your target audience is more important than being faithful to the source text, so it’s common to see a completely different text in the target language that evokes the same emotions as the text in the source language;
• Cultural adaptation is a must if your brand really wants to reach the target audience as described above. TV ads of successful brands are a complete re-make in each country;
• Every transcreation project comes with a brief that is as important as (if not more important than) the actual source text. This brief will contain descriptions of the brand, the target audience, the campaign and its purpose, the type of media (TV, banner, etc.) and other relevant concepts and requirements;
• Transcreators are normally required to provide a few translation alternatives presented in order of preference, with a literal back-translation of each one into the source language and the reason why it was chosen.

Fascinating, isn’t it? At Genuine Translations we are passionate about transcreation, it’s so much fun!

If you would like to discuss your requirements, please get in touch with our team.