What is culturalization and when is it needed?

Let’s start from the beginning. What is culturalization and when is it needed? Culturalization takes translation a step further to make linguistic and non-linguistic changes that can make an impact. This may include changing imagery, colors, jokes, music, or cultural references to better suit a target audience.

Some real-life examples of culturalization can be seen in the video game Age of Empires and the movie Inside Out. In 1997 Age of Empires was released and featured a historical event in which Japanese forces from the Yamato dynasty invaded the Korean peninsula and took over the Joseon Empire during the Middle Ages. The problem? While the majority of historians believe this event occurred, the Korean Ministry of Information claims it never happened. In order to launch this game successfully in Korea, Microsoft had to decide if they would change history in order to make their game appeal to this new target audience or maintain historical accuracy. In the end, Microsoft’s solution was to release a Korea-only patch that changed that specific scenario to having the Joseon Empire invade Japan (which never happened).

In the film Inside Out, a father tries to feed his toddler broccoli but the child dislikes it. This is a relatable and funny scene in the US where many kids don’t like broccoli. However, in Japan, children don’t have the same dislike of broccoli, but they do dislike bell peppers. In the Japanese version of the movie, the broccoli was swapped with bell peppers to make the scene as impactful in Japan as it was in the US. Including broccoli in the Japanese version of the film wouldn’t have caused offense, but it also wouldn’t have had as much of an impact. These two examples show the different solutions culturalization can bring to the table.

How culturalization improves ROI

If we want to discuss culturalization ROI, what we really need to consider is whether building relationships with customers and strengthening a bond with them really impacts your ROI in the long run (this is known as “relationship marketing”). Understanding the culture and values of an audience, as well as what drives potential clients in a certain market becomes crucial if you want to create a bond with them and nurture those relationships.

If your product does not take into account the particularities of a target audience, no matter how good the product is, it has very little chance of being successful. This is because two things can occur. It can fall flat or it can cause offense unintentionally—either way it fails.

Why Culturalization and Not Just Translation

When you incorporate culturalization into your global expansion strategy, you’re making sure that your product will be well-received and you won’t be getting yourself in trouble. Essentially, culturalization sets your product up for success.

The whole point of culturalization is adapting content to appeal to specific markets and cultures. If you stop at the translation or localization step, you may discover that your content or product is not attractive to a given audience and therefore your efforts have been in vain. Yes, they will be able to understand it, but they won’t be motivated to engage with it in a meaningful manner. Especially not to an extent that will make them want to continuously consume your content or buy your product.

The Takeaway

If your content is good and is culturally appropriate, chances are you’ll get more clicks, more conversions, and ultimately a good ROI. Additionally, you will have strengthened your brand, as well as gained loyal customers that can become your local advocates everywhere. All of which can help you find global success.

The post Does Culturalization Impact ROI? appeared first on Terra Translations.

Keep reading to learn more about how culturalization unlocks global success for companies.

The types of content that generally need culturalization

Certain types of content can especially benefit from culturalization. Creative content—such as movies, literature, video games, and apps—in particular can benefit from this process. Marketing campaigns are a good example of content that can fall flat without culturalization. Advertisements, brochures, and other marketing materials should be culturally appropriate to ensure that they resonate with the target audience. This can include any written text, audio text, images, or music included in a marketing campaign.

Creative industries are not the only ones that should be mindful of the benefits of culturalization. Culturalization takes geopolitical affairs into account as well. Businesses in any industry can easily find themselves in trouble if they inadvertently cause offense. Even seemingly inoffensive things can be interpreted as controversial political stances. For example, what you call a country or the maps you display can be considered offensive even if they seem innocent at first glance to someone not from the target culture. Not only can a blunder like this upset a new audience you want to make progress in, it can cause you to waste a lot of time and money on an unsuccessful launch.

How culturalization works in practice

Culturalization compares a company’s content goals with the style of content that would appeal to its target market—to later reconcile the two.

This is why it’s so important to hire localization and target market specialists who have experience with culturalization and who are native to the target audience you want to enter. They will not only understand the language needs of the audience but will be able to help your content be as effective as possible by guiding you toward making choices that will truly resonate.

The takeaway

When it comes to culturalization, adopting a proactive approach where the content is appropriate for the target market from the beginning can avoid damaging the reputation of the brand and increase the chance of making a positive first impression. This proactive approach can help your brand save a lot of time and money cleaning up a mess you could have avoided in the first place. You can work with a seasoned localization team to create a strong culturalization strategy that will help your business achieve your goals.

The post How Culturalization Unlocks Global Success for Companies appeared first on Terra Translations.

Proactive Culturalization

A proactive culturalization strategy focuses on creating content that customers in a new market will gain a lot out of because the content is geared towards their culture. Oftentimes, culturalization is used to create stronger creative content that is more likely to thrive in a new market. With movies, this may involve changing a character’s name, the title of the movie, and some jokes or references made throughout. Here are a few examples of how a proactive culturalization strategy can come into play.

• Music. Most people have strong cultural and emotional ties to music, so adjusting the music to appeal to a specific culture can instantly make the content feel more personalized. 
• Local references. Food, clothing, decor, and architecture can all vary greatly from culture to culture. In content like video games, it is possible to make changes in these areas, which can make the world feel more immersive for the player. 
• Monetization. Yes, even money comes into play here. For example, when making in-app purchases, some cultures prefer to use gift cards over credit cards. Certain cultures struggle more financially than others and may require a different pricing model to be successful. Taking how money works into account can make it easier to obtain more sales. 

Reactive Culturalization

A reactive culturalization strategy focuses on making sure that the content being released in a new culture doesn’t cause offense or harm local sensibilities. When planning a reactive culturalization strategy, you’ll essentially be auditing content to see where cultural pitfalls may be waiting. If you offend a target market with your product, not only will the success of your product be compromised, but you risk tarnishing your brand name in that culture or having to do an expensive recall in order to smooth things over. 

A reactive culturalization content audit will typically focus on the following areas:

• Religious sentiments, especially if the religion in question doesn’t believe in their religious figures or literature being featured in entertainment content. 
• Historical references that some cultures have different views on or that can upset a large group of people. 
• Political references that are divisive. 
• Small cultural preferences may come off as rude, condescending, insensitive, or discriminatory. 

Next Steps

Which approach should you take? Well, that depends entirely on the type of content you are taking to the new market. If it’s a highly creative style of content, whose purpose is to engage the audience, then we suggest you go the extra mile and be proactive about taking culturalization steps. That way, you can ensure that the consumer really connects with your content. On the other hand, if the purpose of the material is not completely dependent on the target audience that is engaging with it, then it’s okay to simply be aware of any content elements that could potentially be perceived as offensive and plan to do something about it to prevent any backlash.

The post How to Create an Effective Culturalization Strategy appeared first on Terra Translations.

Why Video Games?

Good question! Again, culturalization can come in handy in plenty of areas, but video games can uniquely benefit from this translation technique. Video games are not simply games. Within them, complex universes are built. Some based on fantasy and some based on reality. There are countless content choices to be made when creating a video game and culturalization helps make sure the right choices are made when launching a video game in a new market. For gamers to both understand and enjoy a video game, creators will want to ensure that any political, cultural, or religious references don’t offend. 

Cultural mistakes can lead to not only low sales of a video game in a new target market, but can create a public relations nightmare and even lead to a game being banned. On the low stakes side, culturalization can make a video game more relatable and understandable for the player. On the high stakes side, it can stop video game creators from offending an entire culture.

What to Keep in Mind

There are four main cultural variables to keep in mind during the culturalization process in order to avoid creating problematic content when launching in a new location. 

• History. Both ancient history and more recent events can touch on very sensitive issues in some markets. It isn’t uncommon for many regions to feel very protective of their historical legacy. If history that they feel is inaccurate appears in a video game, the emotional backlash can be strong. It’s nearly impossible to dive deep enough into the nuances of historical events in video games, so keeping how sensitive these topics are in mind can help you make better choices during the culturalization process.
• Faith. Across different cultures, religious preferences and belief systems can shift massively. Some content can be seen as extremely problematic in a society that is deeply religious and follows a set of sacred rules closely. 
• Cultural friction. Unfortunately, we don’t all get along. Cultural friction happens on a variety of levels and not portraying cultural or ethnic stereotypes will help avoid offense and make a video game feel more inclusive. 
• Geopolitical imaginations. Some national governments reinforce their local worldview and their definition of their geographic sovereignty through digital media. A game that disrupts this worldview, even if their content is seen as accurate in other cultures, can lead to a disastrous launch in a new market. 

Creating a Culturalization Strategy

We’re going to further address how to create a strong culturalization strategy in an upcoming article, but for now, let’s take a brief look at how you can begin to create a culturalization strategy. 

1. Be aware. Understanding the cultural issues that can occur in key markets is the first step you need to take. Hiring a translator that is native to that market can help make this process easier. 

2. Ask questions. During development, make sure you ask the right questions to understand what the cultural needs of a target market are. If part of the content raises any concern, dig deeper until you confirm whether or not it will lead to an issue. 

3. Be accountable. For the culturalization process to truly be successful, it should be treated as a standard part of your development cycle. Assigning a standard team member or team to the task can help build expertise and experience in a way that leads to consistently strong results. 

4. Consult experts.  Whenever you launch a product or service in a new target market, it can be extremely helpful to consult an expert on that target market. If you can’t hire a translator that has strong knowledge and expertise surrounding the target market, you can consult other experts who can help inform the translation team of any mishaps to avoid and how to make your content truly resonate.

The post The Pivotal Role of Culturalization in Video Games appeared first on Terra Translations.

Video Games

While culturalization can have a vast impact across any type of creative content project, generally this concept is associated with video games. This is because video games can create richly detailed worlds where there is a representation of culture, history, and religion, as well as the use of symbols, body language, and gestures. All of which are elements that may not translate across multiple cultures. Not to mention, there is room to offend a new target market if culturalization doesn’t step in to adjust for that market’s unique history, current events, and cultural preferences. Across the world, different markets have different perspectives on religion, politics, and current events. If a video game (or any other piece of creative content) doesn’t take these differences into account, then not only does the content risk performing poorly in certain markets, it may be banned. The video game Kakuto Chojin was banned in certain parts of the world because it was found to be offensive. 

Television and Movies

While Hollywood may be the film capital of the world, there are brilliant television and filmmakers from around the world that create content that reaches the far corners of the globe. For a film or television series to thrive in varying target markets, sometimes culturalization may be necessary to avoid offense or to make the same impact contextually. The point of culturalization is to support content, not disrupt it. If possible, adapting the creative vision in a way that will better fit a new market can make an impact. For example, Disney / Pixar’s massively popular film Inside Out has a scene where a father struggles to feed broccoli to his toddler, who is disgusted at the prospect of eating that cruciferous vegetable. In the United States, this scene is relatable and funny, as many American children don’t like broccoli. So what’s the problem? In Japan, children don’t take offense to broccoli. Their scary green culprit is the bell pepper. So to make the scene just as impactful in Japan, animators swapped the broccoli for bell peppers in the version of the film released in Japan. Sometimes a small change during the culturalization process can make all the difference!

The post What is Culturalization and Why Does it Matter on a Global Scale? appeared first on Terra Translations.