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Marketing Translation

How professionals think marketing and advertising translation works is based on theories that are derived from Western psychology. For example, the theory of information processing is based on cognitive psychology with a bias toward the use of verbal material and linguistic performance, disregarding pictorial and other nonlanguage stimuli.

Americans view communication as a process of transmitting messages for the purpose of control. They see it as a means to persuade others, to change attitudes, and to influence or condition behavior. This view is reflected in the theories of how advertising works. The role and purpose of marketing communications vary across cultures, from Japanese to Spanish to German, in particular between individualistic and collectivistic cultures. In individualistic culture, advertising must persuade, whereas in collectivistic cultures the purpose is to build relationships and trust between seller and buyer. The desire of Japanese consumers to establish trusting, in-group-like relationships with suppliers and their products is reflected in the tendency of Japanese advertising to focus on inducing positive feelings rather than to provide information. The different purposes are reflected in the difference in timing and frequency of verbal or visual mention of the brand name in commercials. In a typical Japanese television commercial, the first identification of a brand, company name, or product occurs later than in a typical U.S. television commercial. Japanese advertisers tend to take more of a com­mercial's time to develop trust, understanding, and dependency. In Japan, the brand name is shown for a longer time than in the United States, where it is more frequently mentioned verbally.

For English translation services targeting Americans, persuasiveness, repetition, and hard sell arise from a model positing that advertising and consumer are on two sides of a counter, and that some kind of confrontation is taking place with one side trying to persuade the other to change attitude or behavior. The frequently used persuasion test to measure advertising effectiveness is based on this pattern of thinking. The basic procedure is measurement of purchasing intentions before and after exposure, which reflects a "digital," cause-effect way of thinking.

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