WHAT IS TRANSCREATION?
Transcreation is the merger of two words: translation and creation. It’s an intricate form of translating that preserves the original intent, context, emotion, and tone, and it is originally conceived by marketing and advertising professional.
The goal of transcreation is to duplicate the message thoughtfully and seamlessly, without audiences realizing a translation ever occurred — the finished product should give the audience an identical emotional experience as the source message.
TRANSCREATION VS. TRANSLATION
While translation usually begins with a source text, the transcreation process frequently kicks off with a creative brief.
With transcreation, the result is brand new messaging that is targeted and localized, while with translation, the result is new words in another language, but with the same messaging.
On the other hand, translation is perfectly fine for informative text, but when text is designed to trigger an action from the reader, as marketing text usually is, transcreation is simply a better fit.
THE PROCESS
The expert producing the transcreation must have the skills and knowledge to not only know the cultural nuances of both languages but must understand and match the “spirit” of which the original message was created.
In this process, the transcreator may also take creative liberties and make significant changes to the translation in order to uphold its original meaning, or even advise on the look and feel of the client’s campaign. The most important element in the process is to achieve evoking emotion with proper cultural adaption across all fractions of the campaign.
On the other hand, transcreation can be done also by translators, and enables them o inject their own creativity and cultural knowledge to create content that resonates with a new audience.
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