Localisation and the part it plays for brands all over the world

E-commerce is currently the highest it has ever been and this means companies have no barriers when it comes to being able to sell their products or market their brand globally. Big brands are spending fortunes creating global marketing campaigns that can be seen all over the world. But think about this… imagine using a colour on your billboard in India that might be locally offensive, or spending months creating a slogan, that doesn’t translate correctly in Chinese. THEN WHAT!?

Little is known about company brand and designs across cultures (Woo Jun & Lee, 2007), which is where any type of brand could fail when creating global marketing campaigns. But why is localisation so important to companies? HERE ARE 3 REASONS WHY:

  1. Can’t read, won’t buy! – 2% of consumers say that being able to read information in their own language is more important than price (Common Sense Advisory, 2006)
  2. Bigger revenues – 65% of multinational companies say that localisation is important when thinking about increasing revenues
  3. Sales increases – 71% of North American executives expect revenues from foreign operations, sales and/or imports to increase.

When thinking about moving your business into other parts of the world it is extremely important to understand the needs and wants of people of different cultures. You need to think about language and tone of voice – Simple short tag lines work best (GALA, 2016). There are some huge brands that have failed miserably at localisation… Let’s take American airlines for example –  When introducing leather seats, American airlines produced Marketing collateral that stated ‘Fly in leather’. As you can imagine, this campaign was seen in many locations across the world and for the US’ neighbours Mexico, ‘Fly in Leather’ translated to ‘Fly naked’ in Spanish. (Language reach, 2015). Massive fail? I THINK SO. If you can see past it, you can see how funny some of them can be. Fancy a laugh? Why not check out some of the funniest translation errors at here.

Image – fly naked?

Localisation isn’t only about language and getting the translation correct, it’s about knowing your market and the kind of product they want. McDonalds are a good example of this, they have mastered globalisation with a few simple ideas – in New Zealand they have the KIWI burger and in India you can purchase a Chicken Maharaja-Mac (Endpoint, 2016). Comtech can help diminish this barrier with their Marketing translation and localisation tips, have a read here .

Image – Kiwi Burger. 

Video – McDonalds, Kiwi Burger Ad

For consumers, a lot of the time a website is the first port for e-commerce, information and services (Mol-Lukkezen, 2015), so if you’re a big brand globally, it is important that you have a website designed specifically for that country. Take Victoria’s Secret for example, they broke into the UK Market over 6 years ago but they are still yet to create a UK based website, this can really hurt the sales for a company… especially if it needs to be translated into say Chinese and the consumer cannot read all of the information properly. Localize identifies 9 top tips for website localisation in their blog, if you’re not up to date on website localisation it really is worth a read! Check it out here now!

There are a lot of factors to be considered when thinking about localisation, but nowadays there are ways in which you can get help. Check out Crowdin, a tool that can help companies with localisation issues.

Thanks for reading, be sure to check in again soon!

Emily xo.

References:

  • Woo Jun, J. and Lee, H.S., 2007. Cultural differences in brand designs and tagline appeals. International Marketing Review, 24(4), pp.474-491.
  • Donald A. DePalma, Benjamin B. Sargent, and Renato S. Beninatto . (2006). Can’t Read, Won’t Buy: Why Language Matters on Global Websites. Common sense Advisory. [Online] Available from: https://www.commonsenseadvisory.com/Portals/_default/Knowledgebase/ArticleImages/060926_R_global_consumer_Preview.pdf. Accessed: 4 April 2016.
  • GALA . (2016). Why Localize?.Available: https://www.gala-global.org/industry/language-industry-facts-and-data/why-localize. Last accessed 4 April 2016.
  • Language reach. (2015). Why is Localisation so important for your business?.Available: http://www.languagereach.com/localisation-important-business/. Last accessed 4 April 2016.
  • (2016). Localisation of your global brand: Why it’s important to get it right.Available: http://weareendpoint.com/end-view/localisation-of-your-global-brand-why-its-important-to-get-it-right/. Last accessed 4 April 2016.
  • Mol-Lukkezen, H. (2015). THE IMPORTANCE OF LOCALISATION FOR YOUR COMPANY.Available: http://exito-translations.nl/en/localisation-for-your-company/. Last accessed 4 April 2016.

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