About Advocating Global
A blog designed to support globally minded communication professionals with insight into the global communication strategies that lead to desired behavior and positive end-user outcomes. We write and invite experts to write in about global communication topics in healthcare, corporate communications and marketing, as well as best practices in localization and process management.
Our topics may vary, but our focus is always on the advocacy for the communications professional; to empower them with the tools and best practices to be a global leader and make a difference in the outcomes of the end-user.
Marketing Translation and Global Branding
Our Global Marketing Translation and Global Branding Blog is for marketing professionals, designers and writers who are involved in translation of brand messaging, websites, brochures, flyers, etc. We also address product naming and creative writing (copywriting) best practices. Foreign Markets are often one of the key growth strategies of businesses selling products and services. Brand Managers and Marketing Managers need to control consistency and accuracy in their messaging in other languages. This challenge often requires a new set of skills, a global mindset, and marketing professionals that embrace this challenge will ultimately be more successful in their jobs as they advocate for their foreign language end users.
Translating health claims on packaging
There are two facets to properly translating health claims on packaging: legal and linguistic. If you’ve gone to market in the US with a health claim on your product package, you’re already well aware of relevant regulations and may already be working with in-country...
Getting content reuse in translation right
Content reuse in translation can be a great way to maintain brand messaging, shorten turnaround times, and decrease costs. But it has to be done right. Since another election day will be here before we know it, we’re revisiting a news item from earlier this year that...
International DTP: a crash course
While translation is about getting the message right, international DTP (desktop publishing) or typesetting is about getting the look right. We work with typesetters all over the world to create translated layouts that maintain the creative integrity of the original...
Language requirements for conferences in Quebec
A recent project that crossed our desk has presented us with an interesting issue: language requirements for conferences in Quebec. We do a good amount of translation into Canadian French and have written about our experiences and the various regulations around the...
Chinese phonosemantic naming
In our work with linguistic screening of new product/company names that need to be evaluated by speakers of other languages/cultures, we are often asked to screen those names by a Chinese speaker but instead, we recommend Chinese phonosemantic naming. Because Chinese...
Priorities for Canadian French marketing translations
If you're looking for Canadian French marketing translations to expand to the Canadian market, you've come to the right place! The Canadian market is not entirely homogenous to the US market, and as large retailers have experienced in the past, it takes quite a bit of...
International food packaging translation: a recipe for success
International food packaging translation is a bit like following a recipe: it must include the necessary ingredients in the correct proportions and prepared in a certain way. These “ingredients” will vary by market, which is a lesson that European grocery giant Tesco...
Marketing translations: some common challenges
In the same way that a marketing campaign requires targeted creativity, marketing translations are typically an exercise in creative strategy. Elements like idioms and plays on words can make an ad or awareness campaign entertaining, attention-getting, or memorable....
Brand name evaluation for international markets
The importance of brand name evaluation for international markets may not be evident until it’s too late. Take Facebook’s decision to change its name to Meta. Hebrew speakers were quick to poke fun at the fact that “meta” is the feminine form of the adjective “dead,”...
Marketing translations in Spanish: avoiding common pitfalls
Four major questions that often come into play when doing marketing translations in Spanish are 1) Which variant of Spanish? 2) Is the audience one person or more than one person? 3) Should formal or informal address be used? 4) Which gender markers are appropriate,...