Transcreation—The Art & Science of Meaningful Multicultural Engagement

How many times have you been in a meeting where it seemed like people were using the same words, but those words didn’t mean the same thing to everyone? A shared understanding of language is such an important element of any successful project, which is why we’ve been very excited to be able to highlight how we use transcreation in our projects to conduct meaningful connections.

What is transcreation?

Transcreation is a process of creating culturally relevant translations that resonate with the culture and language of the communities we are trying to reach or engage. This happens in many ways, using a mix of emotional storytelling, imagery, animation, and video to convey the message.

Benefits

• Results in localized messaging that resonates with the target audience

• Increases levels of engagement & CTA

• Increases project understanding / awareness

Costs/Risks

• Transcreation requires more time & resources

• Requires access to specialized understanding of the target culture/language

• Requires a degree of risk tolerance / obtaining client buy-in

How we use transcreation at PointNorth:

We think of translation as the baseline for meaningful engagement. Transcreation takes our ability to engage with communities to the next level. After all, what’s the point in doing work in a community if it doesn’t speak to that community in a culturally relevant way?

We figure this out by asking ourselves these questions about our audience:

• Who and where are they?

• What languages do they feel most comfortable speaking/reading?

• Where do they gather/for what reasons? Where/how do they get their information?

• Who/what influences them?

• Why would they care/give us their time?

• What barriers may there be that prevent engagement? Do we understand what those barriers are/do we need to learn more about those barriers?

• How much time and budget do we have and how much of those resources need to be allocated to each community/language to meet the project’s goals and objectives?

With clear objectives and a solid understanding of the resources available for each project as our North, we determine if translation, interpretation or a mix of the two is needed from the get-go or if we need to identify a threshold for when translation is triggered. We focus on tactics tailored for the audience(s)/communities we are aiming to reach or engage – this may mean that a different tactic may be needed for each audience based on demographic data and cultural context of each audience.

Here’s one small but powerful example of how this can play out.

During one of the Investment Strategy Committee (ISC) sessions PointNorth, Parametrix and Cascadia Partners facilitated for the City of Vancouver’s Fourth Plain For All Project — which included multilingual leaders representing Chuukese, Russian, Ukrainian, Vietnamese and Latinx/Hispanic communities — we were reviewing investment strategy vetting criteria that would ultimately be used to screen potential investment options. This was a foundational step towards getting to a strategy the community could rally behind.

Together, we acknowledged there was misunderstanding and confusion by the meaning of “vetting criteria” (Spanish translation: criterios de selecion) and the important role the criteria would play in how each investment option would be evaluated.

The project team paused, even though we had a packed agenda. First, we translated the meaning directly. That didn’t quite do the job. Spanish-speakers in the room were still confused.

We had a candid conversation about the meaning of a vetting criteria and why it was needed for the work we were trying to accomplish. ISC members felt comfortable enough to get vulnerable, with several members acknowledging this was the first time they were part of a committee like this one and that the concept was new to them. Once they understood the concept, we moved on to the rest of the agenda, which we would not have been able to get through without their okay on the vetting criteria.

The result? We’re able to move projects forward in an inclusive manner, and our clients experience next-level results.

The value-add to our clients is that transcreation is a next-level practice PointNorth already actively embeds into our communications and engagement approach. We work together to implement culturally relevant tactics that meet our project goals and remove barriers for people to fully participate in the process.