Which is best for the Arabic market? Translation or copywriting?
Unfortunately, there is no easy answer. It all depends.
A nice example I like to cite from the business world to illustrate the differences between copywriting and translation is that of Puma.
Ahead of the UAE’s 40th National Day celebrations back in 2011, Puma launched a pair of sports shoes in the colours of the UAE flag. To cut a long story short, Puma pulled the product off the shelves and apologised to the nation.
The idea of putting the UAE national colours on sports shoes is an example of what a translation approach can result in, especially in the wrong context. Translation simply takes a concept, word, phrase, document, website and presents it to the foreign speaker in another language. It asks no questions and works on presumptions and assumptions.
Had Puma taken the copywriting approach, the copywriter at step one would have stopped proceedings and asked Puma to reconsider what they were doing. The job of the copywriter is spot whether things will work in another culture or not; if not, they then think of other, more suitable, ways of presenting something, in this case sports shoes.
Although it does not strictly relate to the use of texts, say for website copy or marketing documents, the Puma example neatly sums up some of the key considerations that have to be made when deciding on whether to translate or author copy from scratch, especially for the Arabic audience. It is key to note that other countries have had their nation’s flags used on sports shoes with no protest or backlash.
Differences Between Translation and Copywriting
Translation and copywriting do share some similarities. For example, both deal with the conversion of a message, in a format, from one language to another.
Translation is concerned with text. It can include the translation of documents, slogans, logos, taglines, blogs and marketing copy. As well as translate the words faithfully, translations do also allow for some tweaking to make sure that translations sound natural. Slang, humour and cultural references are also localised during the translation process.
Copywriting takes a different approach. It starts from scratch. It has nothing to base itself against. The copywriter will consider the motives and the desired outcome of the original text, flyer, advert, or whatever it is that they need to produce copy for. They then write according to that brief. Images, colours, etc would also be fit for purpose and chosen from scratch..
Let’s think of a simple example to draw this all together…a client needs to produce a flyer for the Gulf region for a new product it is launching globally.
The translation route would take and use any existing texts, have them translated and produce an Arabic version, with all the same images, colour, scheme, etc. It will essentially look the same other than Arabic script.
The copywriting route would take many steps back. It would start by considering the goal of the flyer, how best to place it in the current market, the tone to adopt and many of the more subtle nuances that would lead to a bespoke flyer that is 100% tailored to appealing to Arab audiences, not a global one.
In summary, the answer as to whether or not you take the translation or copywriting route comes down to many reasons. Time, budget, resources, goals are but a few of the many contributing factors. Translations will much of the time be more than sufficient for most needs. However, when thinking of areas that reflect brand values and need something a bit more creative, such as websites, advertisements, slogans, etc, then copywriting offers a far superior end result.
