Transcreation

Transcreation is a relatively new term which was coined by the advertising, entertainment and language industries, and has become more well-known only in the past decade.

Marketing material is unique from other translation material because many times it contains elements unique to a culture. Those elements include ideas, puns, cultural references, layout preferences, imagery, coloring, and connotation. There is a lot of nuance and creativity that go into creating marketing pieces, and as the name suggests, transcreation stresses adaptation of all of these elements to make a message meaningful to a particular audience: trans+creation = “across” creation, or “beyond” creation. Creation across borders or beyond borders if you will.

During the process of transcreation, the transcreationist may choose to restructure how information is presented in order to make the inherent message of the marketing piece more relevant to the target audience. The original content in the source language is used as a foundation for the transcreated version in another language. In this case, the words are in a different language and the writer reconstructs the message emphasizing those facts that are most important to the reader in the target language.

The message will engage the reader and persuade him to take action. A witty, punchy tagline may well be witty and punchy in English, but if the meaning is lost in another language, all that’s left is a confusing phrase. It will be ineffective and bound to fail.

If you are trying to raise the bar in connecting more effectively with your target audience in overseas markets, then transcreation may be a good option for your company.