CREATIVE ADAPTATION
BACKGROUND
Sipsmith has led the gin revolution in the UK and abroad, becoming the first ever official House of Commons gin. The company’s co-founder Fairfax Hall said in The Guardian:
“We launched the first copper pot gin distillery in London for nearly 200 years in 2009, tapping into the consumer desire for provenance, authenticity and ultimately quality”.
CHALLENGE
When Sipsmith came to us in April 2016, it was time to take their brand message global. With a distinctive brand voice and fascinating story, the challenge was to capture the essence of Sipsmith while, at the same time, making sure it was culturally nuanced for local appeal.
“What distinguishes Sipsmith from other London Gin distilleries is our character. Getting that character message across and for people to be able to discover our story in different languages is absolutely critical to our mission.”
Felix Von Hurter, Head of Ginternational Business Development at Sipsmith
SOLUTION
Sipsmith are proud of their unique voice and careful how they speak to their audience. To earn trust, and fine-tune the right team per language and content type, we initially carried out highly creative test translation pieces for Sipsmith’s core markets – three test versions per language.
The test piece was quintessentially Sipsmith, and contained made-up terms like “Sippical” for us to adapt for France, Italy, Germany and Spain. For these bespoke brand concepts, we carried out a ‘concept adaption’ process that involved re-writing the Sipsmith words with new and existing words or phrases in the target languages. Each new concept was supported with a back-translation and rationale as to how we arrived at the new proposed terms.
As with any creative process, set-up and briefing are a crucial part of the onboarding process. Full immersion is the only way for us to really get to know a brand’s DNA – from tours of the distillery to workshops with the marketing team, it was vital for us to truly capture the unique and charming Sipsmith message.
Finally, all tests delivered, the Sipsmith marketing team picked their dedicated language teams (copywriter, translator, editor and proofreader) after completing a very short survey on the quality of each piece. Transparency, assessment and continual improvement are key to the healthy Sipsmith and Wordbank partnership.
DELIVERY
To date, we have supported Sipsmith with a series of print, video, social and online assets, including their signature brand book. Often a distributor’s and/or consumer’s first interaction with Sipsmith, this brand-critical piece was essential in locking down the Sipsmith brand voice and style in target languages.
Advocacy is a core part of the Sipsmith mission. Felix again:
“If the content is augmented or not consistent, people make a very quick decision whether or not they wish to engage with a product, it’s a real moment of truth. So if you get it wrong, it’s very hard to come back from, especially considering how many gins there are out there.”
With dedicated account management and linguistic teams, Sipsmith provide us with the challenging content we love working with. Crossing borders with the ‘Britishness’ of Sipsmith is a real pleasure and we’re proud to be a part of this adventure.
RESULTS
The test results were excellent. According to Felix:
“Overall you guys had the best attitude toward capturing the Sipsmith brand voice, and justification for word choice on the more challenging test samples. And that really made you stand out.”
The localization quality across all content types has been met with consistently positive feedback. Our linguists love working on the brand and often go above and beyond the brief to brainstorm and deliver creative language solutions.
“We looked at a few transcreation agencies before partnering with Wordbank and it was obvious that Wordbank’s approach to bringing to life the core character of our brand was unique. They understood immediately the importance of our personality and tone of voice and the results have been brilliant across multiple streams of work.”
Felix Von Hurter, Head of Ginternational Business Development at Sipsmith