Talking to multicultural audiences is about more than just translation
While many brands are starting to put more effort into marketing to culturally and linguistically diverse audiences, communicating with these audiences is about far more than ticking the ‘translation’ box, writes Mark Saba.
Back in May, SBS launched a new FTA multilingual news channel, SBS WorldWatch. The launch was spurred on by the fact that five million Australians speak a language other than English. For brands looking to improve their communication with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) audiences, the appeal of buying against these programs, and media like it, is clear.
Along with multilingual TV stations like SBS WorldWatch, Australia also has around 200 print publications covering 47 communities, multicultural radio programs broadcast on over 100 stations, and 17 paid and streaming television stations in seven languages (for Chinese, Vietnamese, Filipino, Indian, Arabic, Italian and Greek communities).
While many brands are starting to put more effort into marketing to CALD audiences, communicating with these audiences is about far more than ticking the ‘translation’ box. Tackling audiences beyond the English language requires just as much, if not more, effort than your communication written in English.
I support Mark’s commentary, but based on my research of Australia’s top 50 customer-facing companies only 5% provide any level of multilingual customer support. We provide a customer service platform in 109 languages and we are experiencing a great deal more interest overseas than in Australia, which is tragic. After significant testing by an Ethnic Council together with our sophisticated language translation software implemented cultural intelligence training for customer service operators and our results supported our platform for companies to engage with the CaLD communities but Australian companies and government agencies have to have the appetite to engage. David