{"id":7178,"date":"2024-01-25T12:55:05","date_gmt":"2024-01-25T11:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/linguaserve.com\/?p=7178"},"modified":"2025-06-18T13:28:11","modified_gmt":"2025-06-18T11:28:11","slug":"examples-of-translations-in-marketing-campaigns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/linguaserve.com\/en\/examples-of-translations-in-marketing-campaigns\/","title":{"rendered":"Examples of translations in marketing campaigns"},"content":{"rendered":"

There is no shortage of examples of how a good or bad\u00a0translation<\/strong> can determine the success or failure of marketing campaigns. Below, we take a look at the characteristics any good translation agency needs to be up for the task.<\/p>\n

Marketing is one of the keys to the success of a campaign, but the task gets complicated whenever the message needs to be brought to a new culture with a different language.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Learn Spanish: \u201cPlata o plomo\u201d<\/h2>\n

A profound knowledge of a\u00a0culture\u00a0<\/strong>is key when\u00a0translating\u00a0 marketing campaigns<\/strong>\u00a0or advertisements. For example, After Bite, playing with the way Spanish speakers pronounce English words, struck gold with the slogan \u201cte pique el insecto que te pique,\u201d as it rhymed with \u201cusa After Bite.\u201d<\/p>\n

Netflix<\/strong>\u00a0understood perfectly that the exotic sound of Spanish needed to be exploited through the personality of Pablo Escobar, protagonist of the series\u00a0Narcos<\/i>. It couldn\u2019t be sacrificed in translation or dubbing.<\/p>\n

That’s why in the\u00a0promotional campaign<\/a><\/span>\u00a0they decided to take advantage of the sound of Spanish in the English-speaking culture: they combined \u201cplata o plomo\u201d with a variety of swear words and their corresponding translations in subtitles.<\/p>\n

They even added the international phonetic alphabet to help with pronunciation. All sprinkled with the sound of a cumbia and striking images. The results were excellent and similar to the \u201chasta la vista, baby\u201d from\u00a0Terminator II<\/strong>\u00a0(except for anyone who used the words with their boss).<\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

Lost in translation: from flying in the buff to high-quality corpses<\/h3>\n

Braniff Airlines found themselves the victim of a\u00a0bad translation<\/strong>\u00a0towards the end of the \u201880s. In the midst of ferocious competition among airlines to attract customers, they promoted their new leather seats in the United States with a photo and the phrase: \u201cFly in leather<\/i>.\u201d<\/p>\n

They decided to reach out to the\u00a0Spanish-speaking market<\/strong>. Broadcast over the radio and in the news media, the advertisement in Spanish was excessively faithful to its English version: \u201cvuele en cueros,\u201d unwittingly asking consumers to \u201cfly in the buff.\u201d The mistake caused uproar and damaged the company’s reputation.<\/p>\n

Something similar happened to\u00a0Ford<\/strong>\u00a0in an unfortunate marketing campaign in Belgium, when their slogan \u201cEvery car has a high-quality body<\/i>\u201d was translated literally into Dutch to say: \u201cEvery car has a high-quality corpse.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/h2>\n

How do you find a translation agency that guarantees successful marketing campaigns?<\/h3>\n

The proper translation from one language to another is key to the success of any marketing campaign<\/a>, because it requires:<\/p>\n

– Profound knowledge of the culture of the target audience (social media, other media, celebrities, beauty, trends).<\/p>\n

– A native-level understanding of the language to avoid any serious errors.<\/p>\n

– A marketing approach that avoids SEO errors, poor descriptions, counterproductive links, etc.<\/p>\n

To top off effective marketing campaigns<\/strong>, you need to hire a good translation agency that employs native translators, who specialize in the pertinent subject area and have the proper formal education. Native translators understand nuances and cultural references that non-native speakers might miss.<\/p>\n

<\/h3>\n

Certifications and Quality Assurance<\/h3>\n

A translation agency should be backed up by the most rigorous certification: standard ISO 17100. This ensures quality and consistency in translation. This way you\u2019ll avoid errors similar to those made by internationally recognized companies, like we saw in the examples above.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Effective marketing translation requires cultural knowledge, native-level language skills, and professional agencies to ensure campaign success without costly errors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":7183,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[104,102],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7178","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-global-marketing","category-translation-localization"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaserve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7178","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaserve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaserve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaserve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaserve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7178"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/linguaserve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7178\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaserve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/linguaserve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaserve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/linguaserve.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}