Marketing
Translation
There
is a famous, if somewhat apocryphal, story about a
failed marketing campaign. Legend has it that
Chevrolet wanted to sell one of its cars to the Latin
American market, so it put up large billboards touting
the benefits of the Chevy Nova, blissfully unaware
that in Spanish "no
va" meant "it does not go." No one, the
story goes, wanted to buy a car whose name meant that
it doesn't work. Chevy was said to have changed the
name for Spanish-speaking countries.
All right, so this particular marketing snafu is just
an urban legend. But it bears repeating if only
because it exemplifies the types of problems
businesses face when they try marketing to other
countries. In addition to the nuts and bolts problems
of translating words properly, marketing involves
understanding the country where you're advertising
and the culture of the people you're marketing to.
It's not enough to use grammatically correct
translations; they need to be idiomatically correct as
well.
Otherwise you end up with strange translations, like
the street sign in
Beijing
that told visitors: "Little
grass is smiling slightly, Please walk on pavement."
That's not quite the same as "keep off the
grass."
The globalization process has made multilingual
marketing more important than ever before, but to take
advantage of all the benefits globalization offers
your business you need to make sure your documents
make sense in every language. For example, "throwing
the baby out with the bathwater" is a common phrase
in English, but in other languages your audience may
think you're endorsing child abandonment. You need
to avoid these kinds of problems by using experts who
have the experience to understand exactly how language
works and what should and shouldn't be said in your
target language.
Technovate Translations uses only expert translators
who are fluent in their native language and fluent in
English as well. This allows them to bridge the gap
between cultures and translate not just your words but
your meaning so your target audience always knows
exactly what you mean to say. We go the extra step and
employ a team of quality control editors who review
every translation for accuracy. We also make our
customer service team available to your 24 hours a day
so we can answer your questions whenever you need.
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