The iPod Shuffle campaign is one of the most cited examples of why a slogan cannot simply be translated: the line worked on a mechanism — brevity, rhythm and a deliberate double meaning — and mechanisms do not cross languages with the words.

We had no part in Apple’s campaigns and have never worked with Apple. The example is useful precisely because it is public and well known: a short, famous line, launched into many markets at once, where anyone can see that a word-for-word rendering would not have carried it.

What follows is the principle the example illustrates, and how it applies to the kind of content we do work on — hotel, travel, lifestyle and retail marketing in Asian, European and Middle Eastern languages.

Key Takeaways

  • A slogan is a mechanism, not a sentence. Rhythm, compression, wordplay and implication do the
    persuading, and none of them survives a literal crossing.
  • Short copy is the hardest to adapt, because there is nowhere to hide. A long paragraph can
    absorb an awkward rendering; a five-word line cannot.
  • The deliverable in short-form work is the effect, which means the English line is the brief
    rather than the text.

Why slogans break

Taglines are built from the properties of one language.

A line earns its place by being short, memorable and slightly more than literal. Those qualities come from specific features of the source language: how many syllables a thought takes, whether two meanings can sit in one word, where the stress falls, what a native speaker expects a brand to sound like. Change the language and every one of those variables changes.

The result is that a translated tagline is usually longer than the original, flatter than the original, and missing whichever second meaning made it worth using. It is also, typically, entirely accurate — which is why it survives internal review and fails in market.

We define transcreation as “creative translation”, a process that adapts the emotional expressions and contextual relevance of the source message that goes beyond literal meaning of words. Four things have to arrive together for it to work: language, emotion, culture and your brand’s tone of voice.

What adapting short copy actually involves

You go back to what the line is for and build a new one that does that job in the new language.

  1. Name the mechanism. Is the line working through compression, wordplay, rhythm,
    an understatement, a contrast, a cultural reference? You cannot replace what you have not
    identified.
  2. Name the effect. What should the reader feel and conclude? That is the part
    which must be identical across markets, and it is the only part.
  3. Find the local mechanism. Each language has its own ways of being memorable,
    and they are rarely the same ones. The new line may be longer, shorter, or built on a device the
    English has no equivalent of.
  4. Check it against the brand, not the source. The test is whether it sounds like
    this brand in this language, not whether it resembles the English.
  5. Have the market team read it. Short copy is where a single wrong connotation
    does the most damage, and the people who can see it are the people who market to that
    audience.

Several candidate lines are normally produced rather than one, because the decision is editorial and the client has to be able to choose. More on how that review loop works is in collaborating with your transcreation partner.

Where this matters outside advertising

Most brands have far more short copy than they think, and almost none of it is in the tagline.

  • Campaign headlines and banner ads, where space is fixed and expansion between languages breaks the layout.
  • eDM subject lines, where a flat rendering costs the open rate before anybody reads the email.
  • Booking-flow and call-to-action labels, where a button has to fit and still sound like an invitation.
  • Room, suite and package names, which are brand assets that get decided once and then live everywhere.
  • Menu and spa treatment names, where a literal rendering can be meaningless or unappetising.
  • Social posts, where register and platform convention differ market by market.

The retail version of the same problem — product names and pack copy in fixed space — is in packaging and in-store copy. The hospitality version is in marketing localisation for hospitality.

What we can evidence

Brand and campaign content where the short lines had to work in many languages at once.

  • For Frasers Hospitality we relaunched the website in 15 languages, including Chinese, Japanese, Arabic and German — over half a million words in eight weeks, integrated into the client’s Adobe Experience Manager system, alongside CRM content, sales brochures and fact sheets.
  • For Resorts World Sentosa we are the appointed language service provider to the Digital and Regional Marketing teams, covering Sitecore websites, leaflets, in-market brochures, display ads and eDMs in Chinese, Japanese, Bahasa Indonesia, Tamil, Vietnamese, Thai and more, with a Translation Memory maintained per language.
  • For COMO Hotels & Resorts we localised website content into 7 languages — Arabic, Simplified Chinese, Japanese, French, German, Russian and Spanish — publishing into the Drupal back end alongside the client’s digital agency, and extended the programme to CRM content, in-room directories, spa and F&B menus and press releases.

At IPPWORLD, we are an award-winning transcreation agency that specialises in creative translation and marketing localisation for the hospitality, travel, lifestyle and retail sectors. The award is Best Hospitality Creative Translation & Localisation Agency 2019, at the LUXlife Hospitality Awards. We have worked in this field since 1994, from Singapore, with an editorial team in Shanghai, and we work in 30 languages — 18 Asian, 10 European and 2 Middle Eastern.

Conclusion

The lesson usually drawn from famous campaigns is that translation is risky. The more useful lesson is narrower: the shorter the copy, the less a translation can do for it, and the more the work becomes writing.

If a line in your brand matters enough to have been argued over in English, it is worth writing again in each language rather than converting. That is a smaller budget item than most brands expect, and it sits on the content with the highest leverage.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why can’t slogans be translated directly?
Because a slogan persuades through a mechanism — compression, rhythm, wordplay, implication — and those are properties of the language it was written in. Rendering the words keeps the meaning and loses the mechanism, which produces a line that is accurate and inert.
What is transcreation for a tagline?
Treating the English line as the brief rather than the text: identifying what the line is for and what it should make the reader feel, then building a new line that does that job using the devices the target language actually has. Usually several candidates are produced so the client can choose.
Did IPPWORLD work on the Apple campaigns described here?
No. We have never worked with Apple, and the example is included only because it is public and widely discussed. Our own work is in hospitality, travel, lifestyle and retail; the engagements we can evidence are named above.
Which short copy should a brand prioritise?
eDM subject lines, campaign headlines, call-to-action labels, and the names of rooms, packages, treatments and dishes. Those are read most often, are hardest to fix after publication, and are where a flat rendering costs something measurable.
How do you review a transcreated tagline?
Against the brand and the market, not against the English. Someone who markets to that audience reads the candidates as a reader and says which one sounds like the brand. Comparing them with the source will only show that they differ, which is the intention.

If you have a line that works in English and has never worked anywhere else, send it to us with the brief behind it. More on the craft is on our transcreation page and the category on marketing translation. Related reading: creativity and emotion in transcreation, avoiding cultural blunders, standing out on a Chinese shelf and transcreation and translation: their distinct roles.