Transcreation vs Multilingual Copywriting. What’s the difference?

The localization world is full of terms and services that might not be immediately clear to newcomers. While many will understand the term translation, fewer will recognize the term ‘transcreation’.

Transcreation is a more creative form of localization than more one-to-one translation. Whereas translation recreates a source text in a target language word-for-word, transcreation examines the tone, emotional response and goals of a source and creatively adapts it to be suitable to new locales and cultures.

This makes transcreation suitable for more creative pieces of content. Think marketing campaigns, news headlines or brand slogans. These kinds of content often feature linguistic features such as idioms, wordplay, or even colloquialisms that are specific to local regions or languages.

During the transcreation process, expert linguists use their own knowledge of local culture to work out how best to convey the specific emotions expressed in the source content in the target language.

So that’s transcreation. But what is a multilingual copywriter? And what services do they provide?

To put it simply, transcreation adapts content to be suitable for new locales. Multilingual copywriting creates original content specifically targeted to each market.

Multilingual copywriting services allow brands to create unique content for each locale, helping to engage global customers on a deeper level. Content designed specifically for each region ensures that customers feel valued by the brand, ultimately driving the conversion from customer to brand advocate.

Compared to regular copywriting services, multilingual copywriting teams work to produce content for multiple regions, in multiple languages. This means that, while content can be created uniquely for each locale, it’s easier to maintain a clear brand identity throughout all communication.

For global companies, there are clear benefits to relying on multilingual copywriting teams over regular copywriting services:

• A consistent voice across all regions
• Easier to scale up services to cover new regions
• All services are provided by one provider, meaning no need to manage multiple vendors.

Alpha CRC offers multilingual copywriting services in English, Dutch, French, German, Italian and Spanish through the Alpha Creative division. The Alpha Creative team offers a number of services, helping clients to refine communications with both customers and employees.