If you’ve read a Dialogue blog before you will know that we are pretty passionate about translation, and the growing importance of website translation! We’ve given you the stats. Now we want to provide you with the real life experiences of one of our many clients – Energizer. A company many of you will have heard of, but for those who don’t here’s a quick summary:
Energizer currently operates in 50 countries and distributes across 160. Best known for their batteries, Energizer offers products in portable power and lighting.
With an ever-growing international customer base, Energizer decided early on that communicating with their customers in their own language was going to be key to international success. This expansion plan included all the usual business elements you’d expect, but they took an extra step which many don’t. They realised that to target and grow these international customers they would need a language strategy. For them this involved the full localisation of the website into 10+ language: and this is where we came in!
Our team of translators took the time to establish the correct style and tone, so that the website had the same ‘feel’ in all languages, so as to best engage the audience. A glossary of terms was then created and agreed with the local markets. The next step was the complete localisation of the website. And no, that is not a synonym of translation.
What is localisation?
Localisation is not only the full translation of website content but it is where references and text are also adapted to best suit the countries they are targeting. Consider this:
“At Carfords, we sell the widest range of sat navs north of the border. If you’ve forgotten to buy that all-important birthday present for your beloved hubbie Charlie, we can courier you a sat nav kit down the M1 before you can say Jack Robinson.”
Translate that that too directly and it’ll lose all meaning: Mrs Hou in China has never met a Charlie, let alone marred one; Mrs Ivanova in Russia wonders where ‘north of the border’ is and even Fräulein Schmidt is wondering why you’d send a spare-part down a super slow British Motorway when she has super fast Autobahn at her disposal. And as for Jack Robinson? Well, you’ve lost all of them there!
These were the kind of linguistic challenges that Energizer put our way – but, as ever, we weren’t fazed! After being taken through Dialogue’s strict BS EN 15038-certified quality assurance processes, (http://qualitystandard.bs.en-15038.com) to ensure that everything was 100% accurate, Energizer reviewed our suggested content for input at a local office level. And finally, a little added bonus, we ensured the final website content was stored inside our translation memory database so that we can continue to make quick and cost-efficient updates at Energizer’s request. Something we continue to do as Energizer launches new versions of products and microsites on an ongoing basis.
We must have done something right and we now look to many more years working alongside them and helping to grow their international base further!