SearchStar is now one of 20 UK agencies to be part of Google’s International Growth Programme. This gives our clients two distinct advantages when seeking to expand their business overseas; access to international market insights, and support from an International Specialist within Google via our account team.
If you’re considering advertising in non-UK territories, or if you’d like to understand whether there’s a new market out there for your business, get in touch today and we’ll pull together some insights using the bespoke tools available to us.
What This Means For You
Market Explorer
Market Explorer is an insights tool that uses signals like product category demand and search volume to identify the markets that hold the most growth potential for our clients.
International Specialist
Our International Specialist at Google can support your international growth with knowledge of cultural nuances - purchase behaviour, preferred payment methods, logistics - as we mustn't assume that what works in the UK will work elsewhere.
In fact, our international specialist has already covered Market Explorer and the expertise his team can offer in our recent webinar, GoogleXADFUTURES. The webinar requires an NDA to access, but we’ll happily send one across if you’d like to watch the recording. Just let us know...
Google Translation Service
On top of our place in Google’s International Growth Programme, our teams also work closely with Google to translate campaigns into over 172 different languages.
After sending over English language campaigns, Google uses AI to machine translate ad copy before having the translation accuracy checked by two human translators. This ensures that translation isn’t literal, takes into account colloquialisms and avoids issues with cultural references.
Well aware of the limitations of the publicly available Google Translate, we ran a number of Google’s translations past native speakers at our parent company, Welocalize. They were impressed, and confirmed the translations were accurate and culturally sensitive.
The Importance of Good Translation
Here are three "I can't believe that actually happened" examples that demonstrate why accurate and culturally sensitive translation is so important.
Parker Pen
Slogan: “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you”
Translated into Spanish they used the verb “embarazar”, which actually means “to impregnate”, and not “to embarrass”.
Translation: “It won’t leak you pocket and make you pregnant”
Nova (car)
When this was released in Mexico they should have changed the name. “No va” literally means “it doesn’t go”.
KFC:
Slogan: Finger lickin’ good
Translation: “We’ll eat your fingers off” (Chinese)
If you’re considering advertising in non-UK territories, or if you’d like to understand whether there’s a new market out there for your business, get in touch today and we’ll pull together some insights using the bespoke tools available to us.
