In a highly globalised and an increasingly interdependent world, it seems as if countries are easily influenced by each other’s governments, companies, and cultures. The increase of global interaction and trade has obliged corporations to tailor their offerings to suit local needs and preferences.
Even more, in order to fit in with the environment they operate in, many brands have to either create special products for certain regions or to alter their advertising messages according to the local customer profile. The latter often results in many problems due to the fact that certain languages are hard to employ unless they were mastered first.
When advertising in the Arab world, many companies prominently fail to “localise” their messages using the Arabic language. The Arabic language is considered as one of the hardest languages in the world. What adds to the challenges is it being a really meaning-sensitive language in which each word could have many different meanings or expressions.
As we all know, language plays a huge role in communication and message transmission. It might affect people’s behaviour, perceptions, attitudes, or even shape their thoughts. This makes it even more important for brands to acknowledge this phenomenon and adapt their messages accordingly.
Translation vs. Arabization
Despite all of this, it seems that most brands often resort to translation rather than “Arabization” of their ads.
Translation had always been a crucial factor in the Arab culture. In fact, many caliphates used to reward the translator of a book into Arabic with the book’s weight in gold. Translation could be defined as writing the literal meaning of a word in another language.
On the other hand, Arabization is more about context and comprehension. Instead of merely writing the literal meaning of the word, it gets localised based on the locals’ ideology to connect with them on personal level.
Why Do Brands Resort to Ad Arabization?
The Arab market is vast which sort of obliges brands to adapt to the local’s values, ideologies, and traditions instead of implementing their own.
In order to appeal to the locals, many brands resort to ad arabization. They do so to avoid appearing too foreign or “alien” to their audience as well as to increase the brand’s familiarity. It helps brands adapt to the local Arab culture and allows people to accept and relate to it even more.
Moreover, ad arabization could help brands develop positive bonds with the consumers which later turns into a positive attitude and brand perception. It increases the consumers’ positive associations with the brand itself.
All of this adds to the importance of revolving the brand’s messages of what’s most important to the target audience themselves. This would definitely make them pay more attention to the message and try harder to comprehend it.
The Problem in Translation
It is crucial that brands localise their ads instead of merely translating them; the latter often results in drastic effects. When relying more on translation, a lot of context could get eradicated. It would make the message lose its sense of meaning which might later affect the brand’s offerings and value proposition.
Translation might also result in unwanted problems including socio-cultural or political ones as well. It could make the ad lose its intended outcome and divert the brand from its identity. Also, translation could cause confusion in the intended message which in turn hurts the brand’s image and positioning.
These are some of the reasons behind brands resorting to ad arabization instead of translation. In fact, there happens to be a lot of arabized ads which have succeeded in appealing to the locals and added to the overall brand’s strength.
AD-aptation
Ads adaptation could either be textual or graphical. Sometimes, using images of people who look like the target audience in ads might help to grab attention. Also, using texts or words in ads that are commonly said in the local area where the ad will be shown might also do the trick.
It’s important to note that not all of the ad arabization efforts are deemed as successful. While trying to “Arabize” their ads, many companies fail miserably.
One of the reasons for failure is that brands believe that they’re localising their ad when they are just translating its language. This results in a lot of translation and grammatical mistakes which ends up killing the ad’s vibe or identity.
There are a lot of cases where brands committed translation mistakes in their ads and marketing efforts. Such mistakes have proven to be costly for brands later on. To solve this, there has to be a team of Arab natives who oversee the ad arabization process and edit any language mistake to set up the ad’s tone.
Know Thy-“Product”
However, the key to Arabization extends far from language and translations. There has to be an understanding of the product’s feature as well as the brand elements to depict the advertising messages accurately.
Also, not having a wide grasp of the culture and its artefacts could result in misunderstanding the ad’s intended message. The audience could perceive the ad as offensive or even use it as a trigger to boycott the brand itself.
In order to successfully arabize the ad, it has to resonate with the Arabic heritage.
This also applies to brands which are advertising globally but using outdated representation of the Arab culture. Brands should consider the effect of such act especially if the business plans on entering a new market later on and expanding to the Arab world.
The effect of this act might go viral and affect the segment the brand is trying to reach in the new market. It might also result in a negative brand impression and a massive opportunity loss.
This has actually happened when Coca Cola used an “oriental” view of the Arab World in one of its ads and the public viewed it as offensive and racist. Coca Cola had to take back its ad from the market which caused some financial and non-financial losses.
Do You Believe in “The Tooth Fairy”?
Add to that, there are certain characters which don’t exist in the Arab culture such as the tooth fairy. This adds to the importance of knowing which images to avoid and which to embed in advertisements.
Ad Arabization is crucial for any brand trying to make an impact in the Arab market. Instead of relying on translation, localising their ads would add more value to the brand identity.
Arabizing ads could occur on different levels. These are often affected by each country’s culture and language, but it’s essential to merge all of these factors together for more representation in the brand’s ad messages.
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