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Marketing translations.

Published by Esteban Glas on January 13th, 2007 | This post lacks all category except for: Business, Marketing

Lately I’ve been looking at international companies ads, mainly print and billboard ones, puzzled on how such things happen. Punch lines and slogans that are great in English make a very unhappy transition to spanish in way too many cases.

The interesting thing about Latin America is that although most of the countries speak Spanish, it is rather different from one country to another. I can remember the case of Mitubishi’s Pajero, which scandalized a few marketers in Argentina, since there was no possible way to name it that way; since “Pajero” is slang for someone that, uh, well, masturbates a lot. Thus the nice 4×4 is called “montero” here.

Regrettably not all examples are so clear to marketers because they are a little bit more subtle. What Ad agencies refuse to acknowledge is that what works as a smart marketing phrase in English is either lousy or even negative when translated.

To give a backwards example, a couple of years ago there was a TV campaign around “el que sabe, sabe” which, translated into English (in the fashion things get translated into spanish) is “he who knows, knows”. Absolute rubbish, right? Although the phrase is “correct English” it looses all it’s added value, since, as we all know words are not only just words, but are permeated of a cultural baggage.

Thus, mere “translations” of Marketing punchlines should be out of the question, those have to be thought again; as in “what is the underlying message of this slogan, and how can I do something similar in another language”. Sadly enough it turns out it’s much cheaper to just translate than to think.

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