Arabic Marketing translation

Have you translated your Marketing Content into Arabic recently? Are you targeting a certain country in the Middle- East or the Middle East as a region and does it make a difference when it comes to localizing into Arabic, isn’t it 1 language? At some point, every company selling its products or services into the Middle East or North Africa got to translate its website, brochures, marketing collaterals into Arabic to penetrate and compete in this huge market. Yes, it is one language, yet, the decision that marketing team should take before translating marketing materials into Arabic is who will be the consumer of this content.

Arabic Marketing translation
Arabic is a language spoken by more than 290 Million people around the world. There are different dialects and accents in the Arabic language. The dialect and accent used in countries like Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria is totally different than the dialects and accent in Egypt, Libya, Lebanon and also different than the accent and dialects in the Gulf region.

When it comes to Arabic translation standards, there is a common ground between all the Arabic speakers, which is the Modern Standard Arabic (MSA). MSA is the version used in the newspapers, books and broadcasting news. The Arabic written in a newspaper in Lebanon is the same like the Arabic written in a newspaper in Egypt, KSA or Kuwait or any Arabic country.

But when it comes to marketing, you may need to adapt some content into certain dialect to attract specific user group's attention! And here comes the difference! Adapting your content into Arabic dialect used in Lebanon is totally different than adapting it to Arabic dialect in KSA or Egypt or Morocco! This is why it differs if you are translating your content into Arabic for the Middle East region as a whole or to a certain country. This is a decision that your marketing team should take based on the product/service you are selling, and customer's gender, age etc.
For example, if you are selling cosmetics, the marketing team may decide to translate the website using MSA to reach as many women as possible but for TV Ads, it might be better to use specific dialect.

Of course, the adaptation of the marketing content involves much more than the simple translation of the text. It involves cultural preferences for images, colors, voice and overall design- all while maintaining the theme and identity of your organization and product. For this region, other Preferences of the country where you are selling your product should be considered as well. The language, education level, belief, traditions, trends, habits, values of your target audience is highly taken into consideration to optimize results.

Tips and tricks localizing into Arabic Dialects

1- Images
Images People usually get drawn to images before reading the words. Start by revising your images and make sure it does not create any cultural sensitive issues. A good decision is to ask a native to revise.

2- Mistaken the dialects, expressions or flags
For example mistaken the Lebanese dialect by Syrian or Egyptian dialect will not go well with your target audience. Names of products differ from one country to another for example in Egypt, they call the milk “Laban” whilst in Lebanon and KSA, “Laban” means yogurt!

3- Adapt and fine-tune
The key is to stay consistent with local norms so it looks and feels familiar and usable to your audience.
For example in Egypt, Lebanon, Syria you might find products names written only in English or French and hugely sold but for example in KSA, the common practice is to write every product or trademark in Arabic.

4- Down to the last detail
Focusing down to the last detail is what differentiate one well Arabic localized content from the other; taking into consideration the smallest details such as Dates, Time, Currency, Phone Numbers, national Holidays etc. besides setting your objectives make all the difference.
Yes, it is one language and one region but different buying behaviors.