Transcreation is one of the techniques utilized by Interlex for effective multicultural marketing. Pioneered in the mid 90’s by our agency CEO, Rudy Ruiz, transcreation involves a process that adapts messages based on cultural values and priorities for multicultural communications to maximize cultural relevancy and response. Rudy Ruiz has always encouraged Interlex clients to do transcreation rather than translation.
Transcreation can be implemented on many levels. At the highest levels it can involve transcreation of an entire brand name or identity if the associated branding strategy is deemed to be counterproductive in a particular multicultural target audience. A classic example of the need for transcreation is the Chevy Nova case study. Back in the 70’s, when Chevrolet introduced its popular Nova model into Latin America they failed to do research on how the brand name would play to Spanish-speaking audiences. Ironically, “Nova” in Spanish sounds the same as "No va," which means: "It doesn't go." When car sales floundered, Chevy realized that it should have changed the brand name for this audience. Millions of dollars later, with the car’s brand name transcreated to “Caribe,” sales took off. Likewise, transcreation can also be utilized at more tactical levels during the execution of multicultural marketing, reprioritizing messages and themes to match up with the priorities and values of the target audience. Transcreation is also typically used to ensure that the true essence of a message and its meaning are not lost in literal translation. Via transcreation, it is common to sacrifice literal meaning in converting marketing, advertising and public relations messages in favor of consistency with the broader messaging theme and client goals with a given audience. At the same time, when conducting transcreation, experience is a key to ensure that important or requisite factual content is not altered in any way that might introduce inaccuracies in communication or expose clients to liabilities for lack of compliance with regulatory requirements.
As the only multicultural communications agency devoted exclusively to advocacy marketing, social marketing, cause-related marketing, and corporate social marketing, Interlex draws on wealth of experience successfully implementing transcreation for public sector, non-profit and major corporate clients.
Transcreation is most typically used when a client is faced with adapting an existing General Market branding strategy for multicultural communications. Interlex is typically faced with the need for transcreation when the client has engaged our agency exclusively for multicultural marketing needs. In those cases, Interlex works with our client and their general market agency to ensure effective transcreation that meets the needs of the multicultural target audience while adhering to broader branding strategy parameters.
On the other hand, when a client takes an integrated approach to multicultural communications from the inception of a branding strategy, transcreation may be completely unnecessary. To that end, many clients have chosen Interlex to develop new brands that are multicultural at the core while focusing on a General Market primary target. Key to Interlex’s success and appeal is our ability to seamlessly integrate general market efforts with multicultural communications. While many of our clients over the years have engaged us specifically to meet their multicultural communications needs by utilizing tools such as transcreation, most of our clients engage us as a general market agency of record knowing that they are simultaneously acquiring integrated multicultural communications resources and expertise.
