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We have more information more easily available than any previous generation. More than 3.2 billion people in the world use the internet. That’s nearly half of the 7.4 billion total information who have almost the whole of mankind’s knowledge at their fingertips. Combine that with the availability of online professional translation companies and it’s hard to see how businesses can still manage to fail when it comes to localization. Yet localization failures remain a current issue for many companies – from the smallest to the largest.
Localization services go a step further than pure translation services. It takes cultural considerations – both historic and contemporary – into account in order to ensure that a document is fit for purpose. The document can be anything from an entire website to a single product name. It’s a service that Gama could have done with when naming its Cemen Dip, as could Batavo when it named its new yoghurt product Batmilk.
Localization fails on product names are surprisingly common. A quick Google search brings up plenty of entertaining results. While to the casual reader these serve to raise a smile, they can be a serious issue for the companies concerned. After all, would you fancy trying Pee Cola?
Loss of revenue is one issue for companies who fail to localize their translations. Reputational damage is also another risk. Nintendo’s name was dragged through the mud just last year in Hong Kong, when it failed to take local sensitivities into account with a Pokemon release.
The Nintendo Pokemon fail
Nintendo opted to use the Mandarin version of its Pikachu Pokemon character’s name (‘Pi-ka-qiu’) for both its Mandarin and the Cantonese language offerings. Previously, Pikachu had previously been referred to as ‘Bei-kaa-chiu’ in Cantonese. However, what Nintendo (presumably) saw as a way of simplifying its character name created an unexpected backlash.
What the huge gaming company failed to take into consideration was the local concern in Hong Kong that Cantonese, which has been Hong Kong’s de facto official language for decades, is being lost to Mandarin. Nintendo’s decision was made at a time of heightened linguistic tension in Hong Kong over the encroaching use of Mandarin. The sudden appearance of protestors outside the Japanese embassy in Hong Kong served to hammer home how unfortunate the lack of localization really was.
The path to localization failure
One can, perhaps, understand a failure on the part of small companies to localize if they are new to selling the products and services overseas. However, it is hard to appreciate how businesses with sizeable resources at their disposal can make such errors. Specialist localization services are available from most reputable translation agencies and engaging these services costs little more than paying for pure translation. As such, one wonders how localization fails can still be allowed to take place.
Of course, a cynical view might be that some localization fails may actually be contrived in order to generate publicity. After all, would customers have taken such a keen interest in Starbucks’ lattes when the company launched in Germany, had the company used a German word to describe its milky coffees? Instead, the use of the Italian ‘latte,’ which means ‘pole’ in German and is a slang term for an erection, led to a whirlwind of discussion about the coffee chain’s new offering. Localization fail or viral marketing genius? Sometimes there’s a very fine line between the two!
In most cases, though, localization fails are not good news for a business. Not only can they lead to loss of income and customer trust, they can also mean additional costs for the company concerned. HSBC reportedly spent a staggering $10 million replacing its tagline around the world after its ‘Assume nothing’ tagline was taken to mean ‘Do nothing’ in several countries back in 2009.
In reality, the sheer size of the global population means that it can be difficult for a company to ever truly be certain that it will avoid a localization fail, despite the availability of online resources. However, using a decent localization company is certainly a good starting point!
Header image: Pixabay
Author bio
Louise Taylor is the content writer of the Tomedes Blog, the Business Translation Center, professional blogs which are part of the Tomedes translation agency.
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The distinctions that you have presented surrounding thePokemon named Pikachu and its subsequent translations are particularlynoteworthy. It is here that we have an example of glocalisation gone wrong where,despite the connection of both globalization and localization, tension has beencreated due to an attempt at simplicity (Ko & Chen). When attemptinglocalization there is a need to know not only the language of the target locale,but also the culture and the politics surrounding it. In this case, badlocalization had created a negative political statement where Nintendo groupedtwo different cultures as one. Linguistic tensions continue to be a problem inthe region, Your contrasting example of Starbucks and its launch in Germany offersanother perspective where there is a translation issue resulting in alocalization fail. As Qian and Teng states, localization is crucial for sellingproducts and services abroad so efficient and high quality translation inrequired (Qian & Teng). In my opinion, this is particularly evident in bothcases where localization has failed in some way, but despite these issue,globalization and localization do not contradict each other and should continueto co-exist in years to come.
I concur with Claudia’s point of view. The co-existence of globalization and localization is supposed to be achieved as long as we can find a balance between them. Once we translate the name of a product, adapting it to both the target language culture and the political and historical backgrounds, making an effort to glocalizing it.
Hi, Clauia. I think your opinion that localization and globalization will continue to co-exist is quite forward-looking. I agree with you. But I’m worried that unsuccessful localisation can not be fully prevented since the world politics, economics and cultures are keeping changing every day. Relationship between two countries can influence the trend of the culture, the usage of a particular word and so forth. Businesses will face more challenging localization and globalization tasks.
Exactly! I totally agree with Claudia’s opinion that globalization and localization do not contradict to each other, and can co-exist in the long terms. Undoubtedly, to transfer information globally, information should assimilate local linguistic and cultural features. As QIAN & TENG mentioned that in a target market where a different language is spoken, a company can increase its sales and receive considerable profits through localization. So, how to do localization projects successfully has been a key concern. The workload of localization projects is huge and technically complex in translation process, which is also mentioned by Esselink for reasons that developing product in a way that ensures a smooth localization processes, both for the translation companies and localization vendor. In my opinion, localization should attempt to give more importance to translation technology, as the accuracy and efficiency of localization depends on the evolution of translation technology.
I think globalisation and localisation are both very much needed in nowadays society. Globalisation is an act that takes products to a global stage while localisation is an act that takes products to a local place so that it suits local culture, language and convention. In order to better facilitate localisation and globalisation, like SKOPOS theory states that translators should act in accordance with source texts’ purpose.
I agree with Claudia’s views. I think that globalization covers both internationalization and localization. As a translator, we should consider writing for not only ‘a translation project’ but also for ‘a global audience’. Attention should be paid to ‘spoken language translation’, which still eludes us and could be a very ambitious project (Somers, 2003:7).
Just as English has several variations (American English, Australian English, and British English), while attempting to convert the language linguistically and culturally appropriate to the target region, we need to think of several alike items (Vegemite, one of iconic Australian foods but what if promoting it in other countries?) prior to launching the products in an international market. Pym also states that localisation is not ‘just a fancy term for more technological aspects of translation'(Pym 2004:p.2) For instance, the advertising slogans on the Nokia websites had some variations from country to country.
In addition, as Localization Industry Standards Association (LISA) defines globalization: ‘Globalization addresses the business issues associated with taking a product global’, we can see that globalization and localization have some kind of connection.
Localization is the most important aspect to create a perfect brand image and to get new clients. Translations mistakes or failures impact directly on the values of the company. Perfect translation and proof reading are the solution to the problem in my opinion. The information shared in the blog is worth noticing and remembering.