Acclaro CEO puts localization in a CX content
Brands may think globally, but when they’re ready to act locally they talk to Russell Haworth.
As the CEO of Acclaro, Haworth leads a team of localization experts who handle everything from translating website content to adapting product interfaces and providing voiceovers for videos. Most importantly, though, he helps educate those business leaders whose organizations are expanding into other regions and ask themselves, “Can’t we just use AI or Google Translate?”
While technology is getting better at the mechanics of translation, for example, Haworth says they don’t usually incorporate a given brand’s style guide or glossary of terms, or have the expertise to guide the way it shows up in a given locale.
“When you want to not just resonate in the market to from a language perspective and a tonality perspective but to infer intimacy or trust with the receiving audience, you want to do that in a way that’s congruent to your brand,” Haworth told 360 Magazine. “Companies that win don’t treat translation as a technical task. They will think about it more holistically.”
Localization will not only involve spinning up a website in another language, for instance, but translating multi-modal content such as audio and images, as well as factoring in brand safety, regulatory compliance requirements and more.
Haworth cited research where 76 per cent of online shoppers said that they wouldn’t buy a product that’s not marketed in their native language, but noted there can be critical differences and nuances that are particular to different regions within the same country.
“Are you going to put your credit card details into a site that can’t relate to who you are?” he asked. “There are real facts behind the economics at play when it comes to ensuring that you’ve got the right resonance with local markets in each country.”
Localization from a customer experience (CX) perspective also has to take into account cultural norms. Haworth gave the example of a brand expanding into the Middle East, where any marketing or corporate imagery showing couples kissing would be unacceptable.
“What may be totally appropriate for France is massively inappropriate for, for Japan, and that could be nothing to do with the language, or it could be nothing to do with even the imagery. It could simply be with the colors,” he said. “When you’re trying to internationalize content, and quite often this is done at scale and at speed, those are where the mistakes or oversights can creep in.”
Many organizations used to have in-house localization departments, but Haworth said many of them have disappeared as part of ongoing budget cuts, which is part of what drives many customers to engage with Accalaro. While there’s no single metric that can judge the quality of a brand’s tonality and influence within a particular region, he advised looking at other aspect of business performance, such as traffic, downloads and purchases.
“If you’re getting certain click through rates and certain referral rates in America, you’ve got a benchmark,” he said. “If that’s not happening well internationally, or let’s say it’s working well in France, but it’s not working well in Germany, that’s a feedback mechanism that’s telling you, ‘Oh, hold on, something’s not right.’ Triangulating that into the efficacy of that process to ensure the content is resonating in a local market is what we’re really focused on.”
