How Linguistic Research Can Save Your Rebranding Strategy
by Chad Richardson
Rebranding can be critical to a company’s survival. Many company’s understand the audience is changing, competition is more fierce, and going global is a must.
So, your company is going through a rebranding process in preparation to launch your company’s services or products to the worldwide market. You’ve spent countless hours and dollars to pick the right name, look, and tone of the brand. The team finally comes together with high fives and pats on the back. It looks wonderful and sounds so beautiful to the ear. We’ve got a winner! But, do you?
It may be appealing to North American English native speakers but have you considered how that new brand name will sound and look to consumers located in other parts of the world? What if your new brand name sounded quite offensive in a foreign target market? Do you think that would negatively affect your sales? You better believe it!
This is where Linguistic Research can be beneficial. The objective would be to ensure that the name chosen would not be offensive in other languages. First, the client would need to identify what worldwide regions they are targeting and, with guidance, the list of associated target languages. The language teams would then be engaged for the in-depth research. This would involve researching similar words, whether written or phonetic, to understand if they could be construed as offensive or misleading as well as understand what the meaning of those similar written or sounding words are.
To avoid corporate embarrassment, it’s best to include Linguistic Research for your worldwide brand naming endeavors. To avoid offending your target consumers take the time upfront to understand your worldwide audiences.
For more information on taking your company global, contact Keylingo.
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