Have
you ever wondered what Activision’s Call of Duty and fast-food franchise Dunkin
donuts have in common?

In
order not to turn this blog post into some trivia, we would just go ahead to
answer the question.

The
answer lies in the fact that both brands have been able to create successful
global products.

Creating
a successful global
product
involves many considerations, with marketing, branding, localization, etc.,
taking the front burner. But an aspect that does not get much coverage is how
creating a culturally appropriate product for a target market is crucial to the
product’s success.

Therefore,
we would be looking at the concept of culturalization and how it plays a
central role in a product’s user experience.

What is
Culturalization?

Dictionary
definition describes culturalization as the process of subjecting something to
the influence of culture. In the language industry context, it involves
adapting a product and its content to the cultural peculiarities of its target
region.

When
we talk about the culture of a region, we refer to its history, beliefs
(traditional and religious), geography, and even going as far as straying into
the domain of its political sentiments.

Although
some people claim culturalization is a part of the localization process (a later stage),
others argue that it is a standalone process that takes localization to the
next level.

Irrespective
of whichever side of the fence you belong to, it is still crucial to
incorporate culturalization as part of your product development process.

How does
culturalization work?

While
culturalization has diverse applications across different segments like; Food,
Movies, Gaming, and Software, the underlying principle of developing a
culturally relevant product remains the same.

Functional
knowledge of culturalization involves the understanding of what reactive and
proactive culturalization means.

Reactive
culturalization on one hand involves identifying elements that are culturally
sensitive or controversial, which could subsequently negatively affect a
product’s reception by its target audience. While on the other hand, proactive
culturalization involves incorporating relevant elements that can endear the
product to its desired users.

At
the heart of effective culturalization lies extensive market research on the
target market so that LSP’s can develop the right blend of appropriate reactive
and proactive cultural elements for the product.

An
example of culturalization is how Dunkin Donuts adapted its menu to
suit its global consumers with custom offerings in China, Korea, Lebanon, and Russia.

In
summary, culturalization involves many of the following;

• Adapting the product itself to suit the local market
• Translating the brand messaging and text to be culturally
  sensitive
• Redesigning visual elements to be culturally suitable
• Checking for legal and regulatory compliance

Culturalization and
the gaming industry

One
segment where culturalization is particularly relevant is in the gaming
industry, particularly because there is often that clash between the cultural
correctness of content and the developers’ creative vision.

But
as long as regional sovereignty supersedes business interest, gaming companies
must factor culturalization into game development in order to stay away from
backlash associated with culturally insensitive content.

Another
segment that requires attention in gaming is the aspect of user experience,
culturalization plays a huge role in bridging gaming content inclusiveness,
which helps to deliver a better overall end product for consumers.

The
2019 UX Game summit sheds more light in this regard.

It
does not end there. Gaming entities must also factor in a rigorous quality
assurance process that involves testing and other measures that make it easy to
identify and remove aspects that may be controversial.

As
the transition of gaming from consoles and PC mobile continues to pick up
steam, effective culturalization provides gaming developers the opportunity to
explore the potentials of emerging markets.

Conclusion

Creating
a successful global product whether physical or digital now goes beyond
translating and even localizing said product for its target market. The product
must be culturally appropriate to its target audience, otherwise, it could
result in some form of censorship which ultimately leads to a loss in revenue.

The
key to global success oftentimes lies in ensuring that products pander to the
cultural peculiarities of their target market.

If you are ever in
need of specialists to help take your products global, the translation and localization experts at Translationsinlondon are one call away to deliver a seamless transition process.