Bridge the gap between technical and creative communications

Editor's Notes

• #3: “ Respect” has become the buzzword behind the concept of global advertising. Brands need to enter the communities, the cultures, in order to gain trust, be accepted and eventually be listened. The only way brands can do this is by respecting the consumers’ language and entering their cultural framework. But how can brands communicate in the current new advertising era?
• #4: 1) Today’s global markets are bigger and more attractive than the traditional home market, but infinitely more complex. They require brands to become multilingual and multicultural. Brand perception differs according to country and culture. Brand positioning differs in each market based on culture, language, history of the brand, competitors, etc. 2) While in the past commercial communication tended to be one way and very little feedback was available (except for market research and later free phones or mail), the advent of the Internet has made a great deal more information available. People are now used to interact for long periods of time with the brand thanks to websites. They also expect to be able to give feedback, and are willing to volunteer information online in exchange for convenience, or a prize. Communication is now continuous and two-way, and one medium can lead to the other. 3) Brands have become very significant in consumers’ lives, almost a political choice. Therefore consumers tend more and more to proactively search information to make the best choice, or get the best value. These we call ‘prosumers’. Very often prosumers are well-travelled and learned, multilingual and tend to multitask in their media consumption pattern. This means that reaching them requires great co-ordination of communication across media for best use of media synergies. This also means that international consistency in a brand’s core values has to be reached to avoid confusing the global target, while local declinations of these values and other ‘by-values’ can be added to add local flavour. Therefore media plays a very important role in consumers lives, so what kind of media are prosumers nowadays exposed to?
• #5: Brands have to learn how to best exploit the synergies in communication production, they need to choose the channels they prefer in order to achieve the greatest effectiveness at a minimum cost.
• #6: At the same time we have the opposite phenomenon: the convergence of media, the message is split but the media are converging, that is, the message can be seen in different platforms. Today media have gone through what is known as convergence. Streaming video and podcasting mean that TV can be viewed online, interactive TV means that interactive features normally associated with the Internet are available on TV sets, and the features of both are available on mobile telephones and handheld devices. Newspapers have an electronic format online, and radio programmes can be heard on the Net or through podcasts. This convergence has not only made available one medium through another medium, but also changed the way the original medium is consumed: the ad that you watch on TV can now be seen online, but online you will be using a video reader which can freeze the film at any time, and let you notice details you would have missed on TV. Podcasting now allows you to watch a video or listen to a radio programme at any time, so while this can be perceived as a threat by traditional advertising, the fact that people will download a piece of communication to listen to it because they are interested in the subject or product increases the quality of the audience enormously, is measurable and is a great opportunity.
• #8: Who is a trans-creator? A trans-creator is an individual with a thorough knowledge of a target culture and language. A trans-creator would usually be a trained translator with expertise in content localization and with creative awareness. The role of the trans-creator is to mediate between a Creative Leader and a target culture. In order for trans-creators to be successful, their relationship with the Creative Leader has to be close. The payoff can be substantial: Creative Leadership can be restored, which will enable the first step towards establishing or consolidating what I call “ an international cross-cultural superbrand ” .
• #10: Ad agency localisation PM : Main co-ordinator of the localisation project on the client side Understands the intricacies of localisation, but also has greater awareness of a client’s or brand’s values and objectives. Has the role of gathering as much background information as possible from the client or the account director to brief the localisation agency. He actively participates in the creative process by funnelling all local feedback to the creative team and the client, so that decisions on the creative route to be taken at cross-cultural level. Makes sure that all materials are supplied to the localisation agencies according to schedule, to technical constraints and format requirements. Localisation agency PM: As a single point of contact with the advertising agency, he has the localisation project under control and can at all times verify quality consistency across languages. Makes the ad agency localisation project manager aware of technical requirements, timing constraints, etc. Co-ordinates the work of all transcreators, translators, dubbers, proofers, etc. Gathers all the feedback from the translators and informs the ad agency localisation manager. Makes sure that all localised deliverables are sent to the ad agency localisation manager on time and on budget. The account management team: The account management team is responsible for the management of the relationship with the client. The client will explain to them what the business objectives of their communication are and then the account management team writes the agency brief with all the necessary information for the creative team. Important in the process because for international campaigns they are generally the same people who brief the localisation manager who in turn briefs the transcreators. They are responsible for the good quality of all final deliverables. The transcreators A mixture of translators and creatives, transcreators are involved in the creative phase of a new campaign or communication. In global agencies often creatives from sister offices, although not always the most qualified people for the role. They advise the creative team on the viability of creative routes in their target markets, of which they have a deep understanding. They help create the core message for their local markets and set the framework for translators to follow. They make the ad agency localisation manager aware of cross-cultural issues and offer possible solutions. The creative team Usually based in a brand’s home market, they develop international campaigns from there, often without sufficient background information or language skills to address foreign markets. By allowing feedback on viability of their creative proposals in different markets to flow back to them - either directly from trans-creators or via the ad agency localisation manager – they can increase the success of their global campaigns and prevent unnecessary expenditure caused by campaigns that are inappropriate for certain markets. Has a strong influence on client decisions. The client Ultimate decision-maker Needs to be aware of the brand context in each market, and evaluate the impact his decision will have on each one of them. It is in the interest of the client to provide the ad agency localisation manager with as much background information as possible to enable transcreators and translators to do their job accurately and consistently. This includes glossaries, market researches, existing literature, style guides, etc. Needs to give his input on communication priorities, as they will influence the localisation process.
• #11: The client briefs the account management team, which in turn prepares the creative brief for the creative team. However, when a campaign is international the account management team also briefs the ad agency localisation manager and the transcreators so that viability of ideas is vetted at an early stage and requirements determined. (All green squares are ad agency functions). Yellow functions are generally 3 rd party and normally never come in direct contact with the client. These outsourced functions are very complex and involve a large number of people. This is why communication between advertising agency and localisation should always happen between the ad agency localisation manager on one side and the localisation agency PM on the other, as they are the only ones who have a full picture of what happens in both agencies and of what is needed and expected. What emerges from this diagram is that the localisation manager + transcreators have a strong influence on the creative team, even when the transcreators are not part of the ad agency. In this context the localisation agency, whose main function is to execute localisation projects, also plays an important advisory role for the localisation manager, in particular when it comes to organising the localisation process according to communication priorities combined with technical constraints and time constraints.
• #14: A brand may be globally recognized or distributed, but no matter how tightly interwoven the world becomes, there must continue to be local and regional differences in how brands are produced, marketed, and sold. “ Glocal Branding” means retaining a global identity while at the same time customizing our offering to accommodate the unique tastes of local markets.
• #15: If video is the best channel for you to convey the message, where will the video be watched? On TV, a computer screen or a 3G mobile phone? Or do you prefer it as a podcast? If the screen is really small, then perhaps subtitles should not be considered. And will I have the time during the voiceover to say what that really fast speaker said in English? To support the main channel of communication you need to work on page layouts, on article contents, etc. Most written content will refer to the video, and most visual elements will try to make it stand out. At localisation level this means that the most important medium will have to define the entire localisation operation, i.e. if the central message of a webpage is given by a video, then the video will be the foundation on which to base the localisation process. And if that video is more likely to be viewed online, then this should be taken into account, because – for example – subtitles will be difficult to read on a small digital video player. The text-led localisation process is no longer adapted to the new needs.
• #17: The text in each component is subject to a set of 4 constraints: Space constraints, Time constraints, Cultural constraints, Functional constraints . Multimedia scenes are built with 5 multimedia components which can contain text: Audio : the spoken text Video : subtitles and the other overlaid graphic text Raster graphics : the static text contained in the pictures and screen shots Software - on screen text : the text dynamically displayed by the content presentation system Software - interactive elements : the text contained into the elements that are devoted to interacting with the multimedia product, i.e. buttons, menus, dialogues, input fields. Depending on which communication channel is most important and on the constraints involved in each of the localisation processes, a different prioritization will emerge.
• #20: In 2005, the American Society of Media Photographers and Adobe Systems Incorporated announced a strategic initiative to simplify the task of hiring an assignment photographer. Adobe then launched the “Adobe Photographers Directory”, a listing of professional photographers accessible online as well as directly from within Adobe’s Creative Suite 2 products. The Adobe Photographers Directory is searchable by geographic location and by photographic specialty, and it includes portfolio images. Thus, designers can quickly locate the best candidates for the job. And because the photographers’ experience and competence are evidenced by their membership in well-respected associations of photographers, designers can feel confident in the professionalism of any one they hire. The original idea came from the digital advertising agency Euro RSCG 4D, who also came up with the final design and developed the application and the website. The advertising agency was also quite keen on involving a reputable translation and localisation services agency from the very beginning in order to make sure the design, layout and content was going to be fully localisable and would appeal to users around the world. STAR Servicios Lingüísticos managed to win the project and immediately set up a team of project managers, translators and consultants that involved other STAR branches. Jesús Maroto, Operations & Marketing Director at STAR in Barcelona led the team. It is currently available in English, French, German and Spanish. It will also become available soon in Italian and Japanese. Overall, the client was really thrilled with the quality of the work produced. Finally, the Euro RSCG 4D design team that conceived the APD website won a WebAward for it from the American Web Marketing Association.
• #28: We recently worked on the launch of a new page on the IBM On Demand Business website in four European countries: Germany, Italy, France and the UK. The centre piece of the new content was a video about an IBM expert explaining the importance of innovation. Unlike other pages from the same website, where an article would be the centre piece, here the video was, and this realization led to a series of changes to the design of the original American page for the European markets, as well as to a complete change in the prioritization of work. On the American page, which was used as a source, there was first a landing page with a big picture of the expert and links leading to a second-level page where the video could be viewed on a video player or, alternatively, the PDF with the transcript could be read.
• #29: Since the video was the most important part of the communication, what was decided for Europe was - first of all - to move the video player to the landing page in a prominent position. This decision was taken after a consultation between the local client , the creative team , the localisation manager and the transcreators . By applying the model of the constraint tables we then had to consider what the driving components of the localization would be. At the back of our minds we also had to remember to keep costs down so, at first, led by our old text-led methodology, we wanted to translate the transcript and use the translation to create subtitles. However, after a consultation with the localisation agency, we soon realized that this was an impractical approach. The speaker doing the voiceover was extremely fast and subtitles would have had to run so fast that no one would have been able to read them, especially in languages that are longer than English. Alternatively they would have covered half the screen and given the fact that they were going to be displayed on a computer’s video reader they would have been unreadable anyway. The other consideration was that in countries such as France, Italy and Germany, consumers are not very accustomed to subtitles, and prefer dubbing or voiceovers. We decided that the voiceover was the best option as it left some taste of the original in the background, but allowed to communicate directly to the target in their language. As we are talking about voiceovers, the most significant constraint is time. Although the translation of the video was very limited in size, the titles appearing before each section and the last frame with the American telephone numbers had to be reworked.as well. The longer texts would have not allowed to recreate the same sort of animation out of readability problems, but also because the animation was embedded in the video and could no longer be replaced in foreign language versions. Hence we concluded that the driving components of this project were the audio , which was mandatory to translate according to the time constraints in order to be laid on the video. the video , which had to be translated according to the space constraints given by the new font size selected. The translation of the audio script was organized as follows. Before starting the translation process, the localisation agency created a table for the translation of the transcript provided by the ad agency localisation manager in which we stated the maximum number of characters allowed for each paragraph based on the time needed to read them in each language and taking into account the little delay at the start of each section required by voiceovers. Translators coordinated by the localisation agency had to adapt the text into their normally longer languages to fit a space actually smaller than the English original. By doing so, we managed to avoid the need for extra adaptations and re-recordings which often mar work in text-led projects. The recording was done in each of the target markets, for greater choice and quality of actors, and the post-production was centralized to reduce costs and retain a greater general overview of the project and achieve consistent quality of the audio.
• #30: The text for the video was extracted and inserted into a table in which we stated the maximum number of characters allowed for each frame and briefed the localisation agency that the last frame, with references to phone numbers, had to be filled in with new data provided by IBM. When we set foot in the video studio the whole chain, from the client to the translators were aware of the relevant constraints, and this enabled us to do the work in a single take, without any need for expensive redos. The result was indeed very satisfactory and allowed IBM’s European markets to enjoy a well-targeted piece of communication with an equal level of impact in each language. The only point that could not be rendered as nicely as we would have liked - because the video was made before thinking of its localization - was the fact that the animated titles could not be recreated as they were embedded in the film and could nor be removed. The solution was to replace them with a still frame bearing the localized title. In this case we were lucky that the animation did not run on top of live footage, otherwise it would have been much more difficult to integrate static titles.