case study

Creative Challenges in Translation:

Launching R.L. Polk into China

People sometimes forget how important a role trust plays in their relationships. In the context of business, trust is paramount – something I was rather dramatically reminded of during my experience helping launch automotive research company R.L. Polk into China.

The challenges there were these: How do you begin to build trust when your audience doesn’t know who you are, already has a negative perception of the services you provide, and, in fact, can’t even pronounce your name?

Let me back up and first talk a little about who R.L. Polk is. If you’re not in the automotive business, you may not know the name; the Chinese certainly didn’t. R.L. Polk conducts market research, generating a lot of the data that auto companies and others use to understand consumer buying patterns. At the time, the company had no presence in China and there was little, if any, knowledge of or experience with their products and services amongst Chinese businesses and consumers.

I was asked by our Polk client to participate in a meeting with their creative team managing the launch into China. I knew the team’s creative director, whom I had worked with back when he was with a local advertising agency. Also present at the meeting were a writer and a designer from a creative firm that Polk had hired to help create the necessary marketing materials. The team showed me a bunch of brochures and other print pieces they’d created, and the stuff really looked great. Polk, like many companies, hoped to simply use as much of their existing marketing materials for the “translation” as possible.

But there were a few problems. As we discussed the launch, Polk’s creative director mentioned, in passing, that one of the challenges they faced was the pronunciation – I should say mispronunciation – of the company’s name. It seemed that the Chinese could not say “Polk” and instead said “Pork.” We all agreed that being called “R.L. Pork” was not good for business. Incredibly to me, the team admitted that no one at the company had ever thought to ask their translation supplier for any ideas or solutions to this core problem of identity. At this time, the team also told me that the idea of a “private” company doing “research” was unheard of in China. In China, “market research” was performed by the government and, as you might imagine, it was not considered an activity that the average Chinese person wanted to participate in.

So they had some serious challenges to overcome to gain market acceptance.

As we looked at the English pieces the team wanted to use as the basis for translation into Chinese, it became clear the materials spoke to an audience who had a strong understanding of who Polk was and what the company offered. The language used was quite informal and contained expressions that would not translate well or be understood by their Chinese audience. I left the meeting convinced that if we followed the client’s direction and “translated” these materials, their launch would be severely compromised. Translating marketing messages is one of the more challenging translation activities and can easily lead to many of those well publicized mistranslations, something I had no interest in participating in or being remembered for.

The next day I told the client we were uncomfortable with translating any of their existing materials and that I thought they needed a brand-new approach. Surprisingly, they were grateful for my opinion and we discussed how to move forward. Since I didn’t have a solution right then and there, I could only suggest that we gather the rest of the creative team together and try to talk through the problems.

With the team assembled, it occurred to me that our first problem was that we had never clearly defined our goals or objectives beyond “translating marketing materials into Chinese for the launch into China.” Also, I couldn’t get the problem of the Chinese mispronunciation of the company’s name out of my head. While my role was to provide direction in support of the translation process, by being invited to participate at the beginning of the creative process I was actually now part of the creative process itself. This fact allowed me to think outside of the “translation” box.

As I listened to the ideas being exchanged, I learned that Polk had a long history to be proud of and had, in fact, pioneered many research and market analysis tools in use today.

A few days later the client contacted me to tell me they wanted to meet with the complete creative team again and to bring any ideas I might have to that meeting. Fortunately for me I was also good friends with the designer of the creative firm that they had hired to design the launch materials. So before the meeting we spoke on the phone about how to position Polk in China. Since no one in China knew who R.L. Polk was, I suggested that we set some basic goals for the launch.

What did we want to accomplish? I thought the first thing we needed to do was help the audience understand what Polk does and work to earn their trust. I proposed that the marketing materials feature a time line from Polk’s inception to the present, using breakthroughs in market research and analysis that Polk had pioneered as milestones to share their history with their audience and begin to gain trust. I liked this idea because I thought it would also help the company address the local mistrust of anything to do with “market research” in general. The creative firm’s designer agreed and thought the time line idea could work well.

At the meeting with the client and the full creative team, the designer and I presented the time line proposal together. We explained the objective of the launch should be to define a clear, positive perception of what Polk does and why the company is trustworthy. Then a simple solution for the mispronunciation problem popped into my head: Let’s provide a phonetic translation in the text to help the audience learn how to pronounce R.L. Polk correctly, since changing the name was not an option. Finally, I told the writer to write straightforward headlines and body copy that might be a little

less clever – void of any double meanings – but clearer and more businesslike in tone. We finally had a direction that could work.

By first addressing the issue of trust, we helped ensure that the launch of the R.L. Polk brand into China was a success. Time has proven that Polk correctly understood how important the Chinese market would be, and today they continue to grow their business there. The launch was a success because we identified the root challenges the brand would face and produced solutions to meet those challenges. By participating in the creative process, I was able to provide guidance that helped develop a marketing strategy that improved the translatability of the English text. As a result, no meaning was lost in the translation and all ideas were effectively communicated in a voice that was properly aligned with the audience. While it’s my job, this project was also one of the more enjoyable and rewarding work experiences I’ve had. I can’t thank the team at Polk enough for allowing me to participate, and I’m ready for the next such opportunity in the future.

Rick Woyde has worked in the translation industry for over 25 years.

Rick was previously the President & CEO of Detroit Translation

Bureau, a leading translation supplier to the automotive industry.

Rick has been an invited speaker at almost every translation

industry conference, including the ATA, Localization World,

LISA and IMTT and has published articles for almost every

language publication. Rick chaired the SAE J2450 Translation

Quality Metric committee from 2000 -2005. In 2005, Rick was

awarded the “Outstanding Contributions Award” from the SAE.

You can view his full profile on LinkedIn and he can be contacted

at rickw@languageartsandscience.com

333 West 7th Street, Suite 120Royal Oak, MI 48067Ph: 248-246-0475, Fax: 248-282-0433

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