Points to Consider When Translating Product Packaging Labels
Packaging consists of products made of various materials such as paper, cardboard, plastic, and glass, allowing for keeping the packaged products together as well as facilitating transport, protection, distribution, sales & marketing operations. It also protects the products against factors such as deterioration, wear, breakage, or disintegration.
Product packaging labels, which play a key role in the retail industry are usually designed by the company selling or marketing the relevant product. The first and the most crucial objective of such labels is: To sell the product by ensuring that the consumer likes the product. To do so, the product packaging is required to be appealing and the descriptions, information or warning contained in the product label must be explicit, clear, and accurate without causing any confusion in consumers.
When it comes to sales of such products in international markets, translating a packaging label in an accurate and complete manner becomes extremely crucial. There are many factors to determine whether consumers would decide to buy a product and packaging is the key factor among others.
Cultural Elements Not to be Overlooked
When translating product packaging labels, it is required to adapt them into the target audience, i.e., the new customers for whom your message is intended, and talk their language, so to say, i.e., translations of the labels should also undergo a localization process. At this point, we cannot overlook the cultural aspects. This is because people in each country have their own unique lifestyles, belief systems, and preferences. A phrase that is commonly accepted and not considered strange in country X may sometimes be considered unpleasant in country Y. For this reason, verbatim translation of the words and phrases contained in the original labels of your products into the target language may not give the desired result in international markets where you seek new customers. Therefore, it would be better to engage the services of a professional translation agency experienced in localization of packaging labels, having carried out in-depth research into the cultural aspects and purchasing tendencies of the market in which you want to be heard.
Paying Attention to Formatting Measurement and Currency Units
Depending on the country, units of measurement and currency may vary. For this reason, one should know about local units of measurement and currency units of the country to sell your products and adapt packaging label translations to such units. Otherwise, your product may be misinterpreted by the target group and you may not achieve the expected sales performance.
Do Not Fall Victim to False Friends or Words with Double Meaning
Working with the team of a professional translation agency would give you a great advantage in this respect. This is because words with double or multiple meaning and false friends (words that look or sound similar in two different languages but have a whole another meaning) among various languages are quite common. Getting caught by such language traps in the translations of packaging labels can only be prevented by expert translators who know about all the intricacies and nuances of the target language.
Paying Attention to Legal Notices
Some product labels contain legal notices and sometimes it is difficult to find the right equivalent in the target language. For this reason, the packaging label of your product must be adapted and translated in compliance with the applicable regulations of the relevant country. Correct translation of such legal notices into the target language as intended would help you manage any potential misinterpretations in a more efficient manner.
