The corporate mediascape
Video is ubiquitous today, but is it really any wonder? Video is about as engaging, dynamic and immersive as online content can aspire to be. By beckoning both our visual and auditory senses, video content is the form of online content best equipped to attract your target audiences’ attention; the medium the perfect vehicle for delivering your intended message. Promotional videos, product showcasing, training materials and internal communications, webinars, live events, customer testimonials … We could go on. The stats are in, and in 2024, more users are pressing play (+15%) than ever before.
If you’re like 93% of businesses, multimedia content is set to be an important part of your brand’s strategy in 2024. But how do your videos fare when it comes to international audiences? Is your content able to make its way to new markets? Or does it find itself stuck in a desert of monolingualism?
Know your audience, speak their languages
If you’ve been sleeping on subtitles, consider this your wake-up call. Failing to localize your video content means that you’re alienating entire target audiences.
Today, the internet is a veritable sea of content, and content that isn’t localized is destined to drown. Quality video content available in your audiences’ native languages feels immediately more tailored, and this is reflected in consumer habits. To illustrate:
- 87% of customers would not buy from an English-only website.
- 72% of respondents reported that they’re more likely to buy from sites written in their native language.
- 56% of respondents rate the ability to obtain product information in their preferred language to be more important than price.
And all of the above applies to your audiovisual content. At Leinhäuser, we can help you choose the video localization service that best suits your needs. We specialize in translation for subtitles, voice-over, and dubbing, and also offer transcription services.
In this blogpost, we’re going to zoom in on quality standards in subtitle translation services for corporate videos.
Let’s (briefly) get back to the basics: What are subtitles?
Interlingual subtitling is a translation practice that consists in rendering a film’s original dialogue, as well as other information presented visually (name plates, forced narratives) and aurally (voice-over narration), in written text in the target language(s).
Subtitles typically appear at the bottom of your screen, but may be found in other positions in order to avoid obstructing anything of visual importance in the video. The original audio remains, but the audiences have access to the content in their own language by reading the subtitles which appear (nearly) in synchrony with the video’s audio.
Given the boom in the production of and access to video content, many of us are now accustomed to reading subtitles. Indeed, we’re reading more subtitles than ever before.
And if you consume content in languages other than your own, I’d hazard a guess that at some point, you’ve come across a bungled subtitle or two, to which there are two typical responses: disappointment or laughter … and both would be at your brand’s expense.
Safe to say that these are reactions you’d prefer to avoid provoking. To do your content justice, you’d do well to commission experienced, professional subtitle translators.
The art of subtitling
You see, quality subtitling is an art.
As per Ivarsson and Carroll in their seminal work “Subtitling”, “(…) when done to high standard, (subtitling) includes so many of the elements essential to art and above all demands so much skill, imagination and creative talent that it is indeed an art.”[6]
Quality subtitling
So what qualifies as quality subtitling in the context of corporate videos? To employ every translator’s favorite phrase: It depends. But below, via two case studies, we’ll attempt to elucidate.
Note: Below we concentrate on the linguistic aspects in subtitling. It should be taken for granted in each case that the technical parameters of the subtitles, i.e. the temporal and spatial aspects, have been meticulously taken care of.
Case Study 1: Subtitle translation for executive speeches
Case Study 2: Subtitle translation for a podcast
Subtitling for podcasts, on the other hand, usually demands more creativity. While the main function of a CEO’s speech is to impart information, podcasts both impart information and entertain or engage the audience. So, for projects of this kind, the subtitle translation process is quite different. In contrast with CEO speeches, talk-show interviews and podcasts often contain more spontaneous language. Therefore, priorities will typically include:
- Company-specific terminology: proper nouns, including names of people and names of products, for example, need to be consistent across all languages.
- Domain-specific terminology: accurate and appropriate use of jargon.
- Observance of company style: consistency in phrasing and format, afforded by the observance of strict company style rules, signals quality to your target audience.
- Creative subtitling: translating subtitles with the intention of both informing and engaging the audience at the same time, with emphasis on subtitles replicating the feel of natural dialogue.
‘Can’t I just get AI to do it?’
For some, the idea of AI as one-stop-shop for all corporate communication needs is an appealing one. But if you know a thing or two about language, you’re aware this aspiration is at odds with reality. Indeed, for rote-type tasks that require minimal creativity, AI is a welcome helping hand: It can and does speed up parts of our audiovisual workflow. But to leave entire projects to be bungled by bots? We consider it unwise, to say the least. Below we’ve assembled a (by no means exhaustive) list of factors that spring to mind when considering AI’s unsuitability to subtitling corporate videos:
- Accents/non-native speakers: speech-to-text technology still has a hard time accurately transcribing the speech of non-native speakers.
- Terminology: would you trust AI to accurately render ALL of your company terminology and jargon?
- Presentation: can AI be relied on to notice when subtitles might need to be moved around to ensure visibility?
- Visual cues, subtleties, and nuance: Only humans are able to truly take stock of all the multifarious, multisemiotic clues present in audiovisual content … all of which subtly feed into the messages being communicated.
- Data security/sensitive information: With AI, there’s increased risk of your data being intercepted or accessed by unauthorized parties. A good rule of thumb is to avoid AI if your content contains information that hasn’t yet been publicized.
Professionally localized video content builds trust
The bottom line is that video isn’t going anywhere, and there are rewards to be reaped from professionally localized video content.
You’ll be better able to build rapport and trust if you speak your audiences’ languages, and this, in turn, translates into brand loyalty.
For your corporate film translation needs, get in touch with our audiovisual team. Our experienced account managers will collaborate closely with you to fully understand your expectations and develop workflows tailored to your specific requirements for perfect subtitles every time.
Blog
The future of AI translations: what to expect in 2025
Getting the most out of Calls to Action: 7 tips for sounding the alarm with success
The evolution of interpreting: tradition meets innovation
The story so far – Leinhäuser at 25
Subtitling corporate videos
Language checks: “dotting the i, crossing the t”
Leinhäuser Language Services GmbH
Erlenhofpark
Inselkammerstr. 8
82008 Unterhaching
T:+49 89 – 480581 00
F:+49 89 – 480581 01