Advertising translators as agents of multicultural marketing: a case-study-based approach

Abstract

In the last decades, economic, social, and technological factors have led to an increase of multilingual advertising operations. Although this issue has been addressed theoretically and with corpus-based comparative studies, concrete manifestations of this reality on the professional market are still to be documented. We therefore conducted two case studies following professional translators in advertising agencies. To do so, we set up a research methodology comprising non-participant direct observations and semi-structured interviews to collect data on the duties, responsibilities, work environment, and professional relationships of the advertising translator. Our case studies demonstrate that advertising adaptation assignments go far beyond linguistic preoccupations, and that the translator acts as a multitasking cultural agent. In our first case study, the translator is involved in the entire process of producing a TV spot, from the casting to collaborating with the editor (as opposed to simply translating the on-screen text). In the second case study, after adapting corporate publications for social media, the translator is allowed to create French responses in the name of the brand, since he knows the client and his product as well as the creative team that created the original English messages.