Cultural Assessment

We apply our findings to facilitate your entry into foreign markets and foster stronger relationships with your global customers.

Cultural Assessment

Every country has its own languages, customs, traditions, beliefs and rules of conduct. The norms in one country may differ greatly from another. When localizing for a certain region or country, you should learn more about the targeted audience & be aware of cultural differences before you take the localization decision to avoid market acceptance challenges.

What is Cultural Assessment?

Cultural Assessment is more than an evaluation of a product or a service. It’s a very deep evaluation process of the product that the global company is launching to make sure that the product is local culture friendly. Companies that have a globalization strategy need to explore the culture of the audience before landing there. The objective of this exploration is to understand the culture of your audience so you can be aware of their needs, cultural sensitivities or even if your product suits them and will make a success or not.

What Is the Difference Between Cultural Adaptation and Cultural Assessment?

Cultural adaptation of a product is the normal localization/translation process through which a translation and localization agency makes sure that the product adapts to the locale specifics (visuals, text, currency, holidays, number formats…etc.), while cultural assessment is the pre-localization process of making sure that the whole product does not challenge the cultural norms, trends and legal requirements. If the product is not adapted to the local culture, it might face legal and marketing problems that will affect its presence in this country.

Saudisoft provides cultural assessment service through studying the product and providing an assessment report to our customers before the localization process starts. This does save lots of production time, and it can help in increasing the acceptance level of a product.

What Are the Cultural Differences That Must Be Taken into Consideration?

Legal rules

such as Age rating: Many countries have varying legal and regulatory requirements for their multimedia content, video game content is an example.

Use of colors or Color symbolism

in all countries colors are symbols for emotions and actions. For example, black in the European culture is a symbol for death and sadness.

Religion and Ethnicity

Brands should put in mind the religion and ethnicity of their audience in mind when targeting them.

Ethics and Values

Brands that have ethics and values similar to their target audience build a strong relationship with their customers.

Sounds & Music

Using sounds and music from the local target culture will be familiar to their target audience.

Images/Photos

Localizing visuals for the local audience is a great marketing strategy. It will help your audience relate to your content and will know that you’re talking to them.

Mitigate risks and maximize impact. Our expert cultural assessments provide valuable insights

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Cultural Assessment for Multimedia Localization

Cultural assessment can be critical for industries/domains more than others. For example, when you are localizing marketing materials, campaigns, commercials or video games, you should consider the above service before actually starting the localization/translation process as it would affect many localization decision(s). Culturalization of games, for example, includes identifying or adding cultural elements to a game that the players will relate to and be relevant to their culture. Redesigning images or ensuring no incorrect religious references are all methods to consider when culturally adapting your product.

Cultural assessment of your media will allow you to create an emotional impact as you will be familiar with your audience and have already studied them. It will also prevent you from making any cultural mistakes that might lead to boycotting your brand.

Censorship is also a big aspect of localization and culturalization for many regions and cultures. GCAM (General Commission for Audiovisual Media) is an example of the regulatory body in Saudi Arabia that monitors and supervises audio visual media content.