Localization is the Key to Growth of Business.
WHAT IS BRAND LOCALIZATION?
Localization is the process of both translation and transcreation of a product or a service to adapt a message to a specific culture. Brand localization is a part of marketing scheme so that a brand could reach out to its international audience. Localisation is important for the growth and expansion of a brand because it allows the brand to interact with its audience and often acts as a bridge between the two, to overcome the difference that languages have made.
HOW TO LOCALIZE A BRAND?
Start-up companies that are interested in expanding their product or services internationally should consider a name that is more widely acceptable. Some names might be completely senseless or offensive in few cultures, some names might mean something different at few places and sometimes a name is already taken by another brand so the name must be changed to something else to avoid confusion.
Like the famous U.S. fast food company Burger King is called Hungry Jack’s in Australia because the name Burger King was already taken by a restaurant in Adelaide. Xuebi is the name of a soft drink in Chinese market which the rest of the world knows as Sprite. In Chinese Xue means snow and bi means blue-green, this is easier for the Chinese to pronounce and it is relevant too. Domestos is a household cleaning product by the Unilever but here in India and also in Philippines it is called Domex while in Japan it is called Domesto, Glorix in countries like the Netherlands, Russia, and Bulgaria and Vim in Argentina, Brazil and Vietnam.
People will always go for products with those names which makes the most sense to them. Also, they are most likely not to buy something with a name they can’t pronounce. So, while localizing there might be a need for changing the name of your product for a particular culture.
WHY LOCALIZATION IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN TRANSLATION?
Localization is a much wider and broader concept than translation. Translation simply means to change a text or word to word from the source language to the targeted language so that the meaning remains the same.
Localization, on the other hand goes beyond than just translating, it is translating and then adapting your brand’s or service’s message to the audience of the targeted locale or culture. While brand localization you’ll have to provide different content for different countries like France, Belgium and Canada where French is spoken but is different from each other, just like British English and American English differs in a lot many ways.
Translation is just a small step to your brand localization, after translation you need to see that whether or not those particular colours, symbols or clothing, if any, is accepted by your targeted culture. Like you can’t use green colour in Indonesia, it is forbidden there. The OK sign that is used in U.S. represents a fetid body part in Brazil. Women in Muslim societies wear hijabs or burqa so you can’t use images where women is showing more skin than absolutely necessary if these societies are your target. So you have to take these issues in consideration before you localize your brand.
CONCLUSION
It is best to consult a team of cultural experts for brand localization because they understand these parameters better than anyone. You can also hire a translation agency that provides brand localization service, like we do here at Transolution Linguistic Services at Kolkata, to save your time and money and also to keep your brand’s reputation intact.
