WE WILL HELP YOU TO:
Translate your documents into multiple languages
Localise communications for new global markets
Translate web sites to target specific country audiences
Localise products and services to a specific country's culture
Translate technical manuals, instructions etc
Market your products/services overseas in more languages
Print and package your translated materials
Hire interpreters to help you sell into new markets
GO GLOBAL
- WITH OUR SUPPORT YOU CAN BROADEN YOUR MARKETING REACH AND ENGAGE NEW GLOBAL MARKETS
Leveraging Global Markets
If you want your business to succeed globally Sky Translations will help you to harness the potential of what an international stage offers. Cultural and language sensitivity is at the heart of everything we do; from the personal interaction and relationships with clients to the products/services you develop and sell.
Globalisation Services
Prior to localisation and translation we exploit processes to find potential globalisation issues before we begin localisation to:
Research to identify cultural sensitivity issues
Review your documentation and media channels for language sensitivity
Consider images for suitability to their target markets
Identify symbols that may be unwelcome or offensive in your new global markets
Assess colours for their appropriateness and impact on target markets
eBusiness – consider custom and practice for international transactions and multi-lingual support
Cultural Sensitivity
We all come from many faiths, cultures, world views and experiences. We are all different and as a result doing business across borders (whether political, religious, cultural or linguistic) requires cultural sensitivity, meaning a sense of empathy, flexibility and creativity informed by cultural knowledge. Our cultural differences become accentuated as we start to realise that the rest of the world is not reading from the same book.
The following examples demonstrate how a lack of cultural sensitivity led to failure:
The fast food giant McDonald’s spent thousands on a new TV ad to target the Chinese consumer. The ad showed a Chinese man kneeling before a McDonald’s vendor and begging him to accept his expired discount coupon. The ad was pulled due to a lack of cultural sensitivity on McDonald’s behalf. The ad caused uproar over the fact that begging is considered a shameful act in Chinese culture.
A golf ball manufacturing company packaged golf balls in packs of four for convenient purchase in Japan. Unfortunately, the number 4 is equivalent to the number 13 due to it sounding like the word "death". The company had to repackage the product.
All of the examples cited above could easily have been avoided by letting Sky Translations conduct some basic research in respect to checking the concept, design, shape, colour, packaging, message or name in the target culture.
Language Sensitivity
We all come from different nations, cultures, languages and backgrounds now communicating, meeting and doing business with one another more than ever. The business world is littered with poor translations that have caused great embarrassment to their perpetrators due to their lack of cultural sensitivity.
The following are some of the choicest examples:
IKEA once tried to sell a workbench called FARTFULL - not a hugely popular product for obvious reasons.
Both Clairol and the Irish alcoholic drink Irish Mist did not properly consider the German language when they launched their products there. Clairol's hair-curling iron "Mist Stick" and the drink "Irish Mist" both flopped - why? 'Mist' translates in German as "manure".
Coors had its slogan, “Turn it loose," translated into Spanish, where it became "Suffer from diarrhoea."
Sky Translations will not just translate your products/services and your web site into another language; we will culturally adapt, globalise and create a “local business” presence in the country you are targeting.
Sky Translations provides word screening consultancy. It is designed to “weed out” words which have undesirable implications in other languages. The most notable problems arise from the use of product names overseas that are fine in e.g. English, but sound comical or worse in other languages.
Picture Sensitivity
Images carry many subtle cultural messages within them. These can speak volumes about your company or product. Pictures or images may have certain negative connotations that may repel viewers. This is now an area that thankfully is receiving attention in web site localisation.
For example, if a travel site in a Muslim populated country used pictures of scantily clad women in bikinis, disco dancing and beer drinking, the chances are that they would not be very successful.
When the US firm Gerber started selling baby food in Africa they used the same packaging as in the US, i.e. with a picture of a baby on the label. Sales flopped and they soon realised that in Africa companies typically place pictures of contents on their labels.
A nice example of how pictures do not translate well across cultures is the time staff at the African port of Stevedores saw the internationally recognised symbol for fragile (i.e. broken wine glass) and presumed it was a box of broken glass. Rather than waste space they threw all the boxes into the sea.
Sky Translations will review and culturally adapt your images for suitability for your target markets.
Symbol Sensitivity
As with pictures, symbols can cause problems in different cultures. Icons using fingers such as an OK sign or V-sign may mean different things to different cultures. Our Western symbols do not always mean the same in other countries.
An often seen example is the representation of the house referring to a home page, or a letterbox to mail.
The use of animals in logos can cause embarrassment and further problems. For example, pigs are considered unclean in the Middle East, and cows as holy in India.
Colour Sensitivity
Colours are also loaded with cultural meanings that need to be analysed in web site localisation. Choosing the wrong colour for your logo or background will not always have disastrous consequences, but avoiding them is always advisable.
For example, in Japan white is commonly associated with mourning. In China red is fortunate/lucky. In Africa certain colours represent different tribes.
When colouring in 800,000 pixels on a map of India, Microsoft coloured eight of them a different shade of green to represent the disputed Kashmiri territory. The difference in greens meant Kashmir was shown as non-Indian, and the product was promptly banned in India. Microsoft was left to recall all 200,000 copies of the offending Windows 95 operating system software to try and heal the diplomatic wounds. It cost them millions.
Global eBusiness
Alongside our web site localisation services and as more businesses benefit from the versatility of the internet to sell their business services and products into the global marketplace, the need to cope with the incoming emails written in foreign languages and replying to your international customers or business partners in their native language and as well as providing effective multilingual customer support has become increasingly important. Failure to provide multilingual customer support can be a real threat to your business success.
This is how the service works:
Your customers send their queries, in their own language to you by email.
You send your emails to Sky Translations, where they are directed to the appropriate translation team.
Mail is translated and forwarded to your customer support team same day or for start of business next day.
Benefits:
You can centralise your global customer support, with a small team handling many enquiries by email.
Your brand is secured in new, non-English speaking markets where you may not yet have full resources.
There is no risk of misunderstanding the customer’s query and no risk of the customer misunderstanding your reply.
Your international customer relationships are empowered!
