Social Shifts Drive Multicultural Marketing

language, and 42 percent would never buy in a foreign language under any circumstance.

Translating content accurately, however, can be problematic. Semantic inconsistencies arise from poor translation, often pointing to the need to create original content in a variety of intended languages, a task that may prove nearly impossible to most companies.

"Creating original content in a foreign language is just unrealistic for most brands," says Ian Truscott, vice president of product marketing for the Web content management division at SDL, a global customer experience management provider. "But individually translating from English to each desired supplemental language isn't really any more effective, because it can also be timely and challenging."

Faulty translations can also jeopardize SEO—multilingual content does not necessarily mean multilingual SEO, so creating high-quality content in the local language to meet local SEO requirements is vital.

"Poorly translated content screams a lack of professionalism. What companies need is a technology that can streamline their approach to delivering accurately translated original content," he adds.

Atlas Copco, a provider of industrial productivity solutions, such as compressed air and gas equipment, generators, construction and mining equipment, and assembly systems, sought to connect with its global audience more effectively. The company opted to conduct its communications in multiple languages and turned to SDL.

"When a company is global, you [still] want customers to have a local experience," Truscott says. "To maintain [the perception of locality], the company needs to ensure that its Web communications strategy is timely [and] efficient, and that it reflects the Atlas Copco brand values of innovation, interaction, and commitment toward customer satisfaction and productivity."

Atlas Copco implemented SDL's Web content management solution Tridion, as well as its Translation Management System, and quickly saw results. "We found that if we published generic Atlas Copco content in seven languages, we could communicate locally with up to eighty percent of the total visitors to our sites," says Olivia Gambin, Web communications manager at Atlas Copco.

SDL's solutions enable Atlas Copco to post content once, in English, and then translate and reuse it again across the Web site. One of the key advantages is the ability to create once and reuse many times, thereby eliminating the duplication of effort while reducing the time and cost of providing local language content, Truscott explains. Tight integration of authoring and content management with translation assets ensures previous translations are reused wherever possible.

With this integrated solution, Atlas Copco is delivering a consistent, multilingual customer experience, effectively managing an otherwise complex supply chain and taking advantage of SDL's multilingual content through its centralized language repository.

"If we publish one Web page of content in all thirteen languages, with the automated and integrated SDL solution, we can [save] approximately forty hours per page of content. As Web sites are an integral part of Atlas Copco's communication, marketing, sales, and support strategy, this is a significant savings for us," Gambin says.

Targeting Customer Lifestyles and Sentiment

Though language plays an integral role in connecting with a consumer on a multicultural level, it's not just how you say something that counts—it's what you actually say.

As marketers seek to create and fine-tune a campaign strategy, it's crucial to focus on working with individuals, agencies, and vendors that cater to the "lifestyle and ethos" of the target consumer and determining what truly matters to a cultural group, instead of just attempting to relate to consumers based on their "skin shade," Frias says.

This involves evaluating core values and belief systems, as well as identifying key issues that may be plaguing a population, such as high instances of certain ailments within an ethnic group.

Over the past few years, the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries have experienced dramatic growth and change in both the prescription and over-the-counter segments. As marketing communication options expand, new possibilities present themselves for reaching out to culturally diverse segments throughout the nation. But marketing of pharmaceuticals and healthcare resources can be tricky—the industry is heavily regulated and controlled by myriad rules, regulations, disclosures, and legal liabilities that present unique challenges to each marketing opportunity.

As a result, healthcare and pharmaceutical marketing that complies with all the necessary standards and restrictions can be expensive, so opportunities to develop targeted marketing campaigns and technologies that provide that capability are indispensable.

One of the greatest challenges in healthcare is understanding how specific ailments can be mapped geographically and culturally. This enables marketers to target campaigns based on the specific needs of a group, as well as their spending abilities and patterns.

AstraZeneca, a healthcare and pharmaceutical company, wanted to maximize the return on its multicultural marketing campaigns, and

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