The media industry has undergone a significant change in the past few years, from traditional TV’s to digital streaming platforms, which offer on-demand content and personalised experiences. Social media has made it easier for anyone to create and share content effortlessly, while creating a diverse set of audiences across the globe who speak different languages and follow different cultures. The challenge now is to make sure that the content you put out resonates with your audience. 

With a wide variety of audience, it is necessary to make sure that your content is culturally and linguistically accurate and appropriate across the globe. This includes idiomatic expressions or phrases of humour that might lose its original meaning upon translation and might come across as offensive or inappropriate in other languages. 

The key to ensuring cultural relevance and global resonance is localisation. Content Localisation is no longer just a necessity, it is a strategic advantage.

What Are Some Ways to Approach Content Localisation?

Subtitles & Closed Captions

The ability to add subtitles to a content in multiple languages makes it accessible to non-native speakers. This is of great help to even people who deal with hearing difficulties. While both subtitles & closed captions function similarly, they serve different purposes. Closed Caption focuses more on making media accessible and subtitling focuses on providing captions in a native language. Hence, closed captions and subtitles promote a sense of inclusivity among people of different cultures and languages.

Dubbing & Voiceovers

Voiceovers provide additional information, commentary, or context to enhance the viewer's understanding. These provide an opportunity to customise content for culture specific audiences. The voiceover can be adapted to reflect regional accents or dialects relevant to the target audience. While these are not the only ways to localise your content, these are some of the most basic approaches that can ensure that your content resonates with a large variety of audience and is not limited to the native speakers.

What Are Some Of The Challenges Faced By The Media Industry? 

Accuracy

Certain phrases or expressions may not have the same meaning and context across different cultures. Take for example the english idiom “Break The Ice”, this when literally translated into say Spanish or French, will not have the same reference to the concept of dealing with awkward social situations.

Language Expertise 

When writing a piece of content that is to be published across the globe, you need to make sure that your content is available to be read in various different languages. This means you must have native speakers of all global languages on your team to efficiently translate it to ensure its accuracy. This requires a huge amount of human resource which is costly and since media content is often produced at a large scale, this process is going to be time consuming. 

Cultural Sensitivity

A good example is the criticism faced by Aladdin, an animation released in 1992. The makers received a lot of backlash for their poor representation of Middle Eastern culture, which was later made efforts to be corrected in the live action released in 2019. What might be appropriate in one culture might not be the case in another. Cultural misinterpretations might make a certain audience feel offended. 

Now, what separates a hit from a flop in the global media landscape? Often, it's Content Localisation! 

With the advance of technology in recent times, this has become an even easier and feasible option for the media industries. 

How Does AI In Content Localisation Solve These Challenges?

Automation is the answer! 

Automating localisation activities results in the following advantages over traditional translation methods:

Speed

AI can process and translate large volumes of text almost instantly, way faster than human translators. 

Cost

AI reduces the need for extensive manual translation work, lowering overall costs compared to traditional human translation services.

Scalability

AI tools can easily scale to handle translations for multiple languages and massive amounts of content, which is challenging with traditional methods.

Consistency

AI ensures consistent terms and style across the content, reducing variations that can occur with multiple human translators.

Feltiv leads the way to bridge this gap between your content and your audience. 

What Role Can Feltiv Play In Your Localisation Journey?

Feltiv empowers your content with the below features: 

• SUBTITLING & CLOSED CAPTIONING for OTT & Theatrical content

• AUDIO DESCRIPTION using AI voices in multiple languages

• TRANSLATING SCRIPTS in Regional languages 

• FILLER VOICES using AI voices

From effortless translations, resonant subtitles and accurate translations to customised voices, Feltiv’s expertise transforms challenges into opportunities, providing you with impactful content that resonates with every audience, everywhere.

In conclusion, effective content localisation is key to global success in media. 

If your aim is to not simply put out our content but to connect with global audiences in a meaningful way, then content localisation is your answer and Feltiv can be your efficient assistant in doing so.

With our AI content localisation tools and expertise your content is ensured to transcend language barriers and connect with audiences worldwide.

Your global success story begins here! 

Take your content to the next level with Feltiv’s top-tier content localisation solution. 

Ready to experience the future of Media Localisation?