by Geraldine Lim

To master the intricacies of content localization for the luxury industry, a team of linguists must first acquire in-depth knowledge of the House and its brand. Such an endeavor involves more than just producing a multilingual glossary, which is a standard practice in the localization industry. It is about understanding the history, values, and emotions behind the House. The What, Why, and How of a brand are not always obvious or readily self-explanatory. Every brand tells its own story of luxury, romance, legacy, exclusivity, and creativity. Then, each brand with its own story is exported to a host of foreign markets, each of which is also culturally unique. This is especially true when it comes to localizing into East Asian languages such as Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, and even Vietnamese and Thai where the real challenge lies in bridging the great, yet often nebulous, East-West cultural divide.

In these locales, a perceptive foreign marketing team at a luxury brand will typically use the unique original story provided by their House as a starting point, add details to adapt it for their local audience, and modify it so that it complies with local legal requirements if necessary. These changes allow them to create their own narrative in line with their own cultural perception. In China, this narrative is often built around consumers displaying pride: pride in themselves and pride in their ability to appreciate and to be associated with the House’s style and presentation. In Japan, appreciation for a luxury brand can take the form of a subtle passion for the consistency, trends, and uniformity evidenced by the brand’s creativity and presentation. In Korea, the narrative is frequently centered on appearance. Especially when appealing to the fashion-forward younger market, nothing is more important than being on trend. The outcome in each case is an adapted narrative in which local consumers can easily identify themselves. The localization team must be completely familiar with the cultural logic which drives each narrative in order to produce strong content.

 

Other Considerations

In China, companies which publish online content must take care to ensure that they comply fully with China’s advertising law, which bans the use of superlatives such as “the best” and imposes a number of other strict regulatory requirements. It is quite common for companies with official web sites in China to receive warning letters from authorities due to simple oversights. More serious cases, such as a misworded slogan on a site’s home page could lead to the site being temporarily shut down with no advance notice.

Twenty years into the new millennium, it is no secret that in most parts of East Asia today’s well-to-do are millennials who have inherited the accumulated wealth of their parents and grandparents. Unlike previous generations, today’s consumers expect to have a say in the way that their preferred brands market their products. In Korea, Vietnam, and Thailand, for example, leaving foreign names and adjectives in their original language is à la mode. Currently, one of the main challenges in creating content for these markets is striking a balance between producing quality writing in the target language and introducing foreign words and phrases for added impact.

 The number one rule when localizing for luxury brands in Asia is to never translate sentence by sentence. Instead, the content should always be translated creatively as a single, cohesive whole.

For more information about the intricacies of translating in the luxury market, contact Word Class.