ABOUT

The issue
Brand managers at F&F, Tesco’s clothing brand magazine had been let down by their previous language service provider who had failed to ensure consistency in style as well as align translation with F&F brand values and tone-of-voice requirements. Moreover, they had concerns regarding the cultural suitability of some the copy within certain markets.

Our approach
To communicate abroad as effectively as you do in your own market, research is key. For F&F, we reviewed the brand guidelines and checked the existing tone-of-voice was compatible with the target markets both from a cultural and commercial perspective. Afterwards, we organised five teams formed by a translator and an editor for each language, then briefed them in order to convey the brand character to each market.

The results
Despite the complexity of the project – which involved last minute editorial changes and product updates – we managed to translate five magazines simultaneously, taking into account all the typesetting and design issues that are integral part of magazine localisation. A point in case, the variable lengths of the languages, German being about one-third longer than English.