Celebrating 40 years of excellence | Ranked among the world’s top 75 language service providers by CSA Research
Transcreation Services
The words that make a campaign memorable in English are often the hardest to carry into another language. Eriksen provides transcreation, adapting your marketing and creative content for a new language and culture while preserving your brand voice, intent, and emotional impact. The result is copy that resonates with the people you want to reach and prompts the response you’re looking for.
What Is the Difference Between Transcreation and Translation?
Translation stays close to the source text, carrying its meaning, tone, and intent into another language. For most content, that’s exactly what you need. However, when a message relies on idioms, humor, or cultural references, a faithful rendering may not land the same way. In those cases, transcreation gives the writer creative latitude to rework those elements so the copy produces the same response as the original.
A single campaign can use both: transcreation for headlines and taglines, and translation for supporting copy.
Transcreation for Marketing and Creative Content
A campaign written in English often needs a new approach to resonate in Spanish, Chinese, or Japanese, whether it’s meant for residents close to home or customers abroad. Eriksen adapts a wide range of materials, including:
- Taglines and slogans
- Product and service names
- Brand messaging
- Advertising
- Outreach and awareness campaigns
- Website copy
- Social media content
- Email marketing
- Marketing collateral
Who Writes Eriksen’s Transcreated Content?
Eriksen’s copywriters are native speakers of the target language with strong proficiency in the source language. They specialize in marketing copy and stay current on regional language use as well as the cultural, political, and social issues that shape how a message is received.
In adapting your concepts for the target language, they keep your message, tone, and brand voice intact. Along the way, they flag anything in the source that may not land as intended, so that it can be addressed before launch.
How Eriksen Approaches Transcreation
Eriksen tailors each transcreation engagement to your content and goals. We start by understanding your brand guidelines, the people you want to reach, and how you want them to react, then recommend the level of adaptation your content needs.
Depending on the content, transcreation can include:
- A review of idioms, humor, and cultural references that may not carry over
- Multiple creative options for taglines and headlines
- A back-translation and explanation of the creative choices behind each option
- Collaboration with your team through approval
Reviewing Transcreated Copy With Back-Translation
Transcreated copy is meant to depart from your original wording, so you can’t review it by comparing it line by line with the source. A back-translation solves that. It’s a literal English rendering of the transcreated text, which can be accompanied by notes on the creative choices behind it. It helps you:
- See what changed. Understand how a tagline or headline was adapted and what each new phrase is doing.
- Confirm the message holds. Check that the adaptation maintains your intent and tone and doesn’t introduce an unintended claim or connotation.
- Get approval from stakeholders. Brand, legal, and leadership teams can sign off on copy in languages they don’t read.
Multilingual SEO
A multilingual SEO strategy for each language and market you serve helps the right people find your digital content. Combining linguistic and market know-how, Eriksen’s experts research regional keyword usage and search volume in your target languages to increase your visibility and rankings.
Your Transcreation Partner
Transcreation works best as a collaboration. Eriksen guides the work from first draft to final approval, while our copywriters bring creative skill and cultural insight to each language. With Eriksen as an extension of your team, your message keeps its voice and its impact wherever it needs to go.
What is transcreation?
Transcreation is the adaptation of marketing and creative content for another language and culture. It preserves the brand voice, intent, and emotional impact of the original, and is often used for taglines, advertising, brand messaging, and campaigns.
What is the difference between transcreation and translation?
Translation stays close to the source text, carrying its meaning, tone, and intent into a different language, and it’s the right choice for most content. When a message depends on idioms, humor, or cultural references, transcreation keeps the core message but adapts how it’s expressed, so it produces the same response in another language and culture. It’s typically handled by copywriters for marketing and creative content.
How do I know whether my content needs transcreation or translation?
Start with what the content needs to do. If its job is to inform, translation is usually the right fit. If its job is to persuade or elicit an emotional response, especially through wordplay, humor, or cultural references that may not carry over, transcreation is usually the better choice. Your materials may call for both, with translation for most of them and transcreation for the creative pieces. Eriksen can review what you have and recommend the approach that fits.
Can transcreation include multilingual SEO?
Yes. A keyword translated directly often doesn’t match how people actually search in another language, so a page can read well and still be hard to find. Eriksen researches regional keyword usage and search volume in each target language, and our copywriters work the strongest terms into your transcreated web content while keeping it natural and true to your brand voice.
Have I told you lately how much I LOVE working with you guys?
Chris Murphy, VP, Business Development, Northstar Financial Services Ltd.