How Does Translation Build Brands at Global Events?

International sporting events are arguably the biggest marketing opportunities on the planet. As the Middle East prepares to showcase soccer’s premier international competition this winter, the sport’s organizing body is predicting a viewership of over 5 billion — more than half of the global population. It’s no surprise, then, that sponsoring these events can be incredibly lucrative.

But it’s not just the sponsors that use these global events to build their brands. The intensity of the international spotlight on sporting events provides a host of opportunities for all those participating to develop their brands.

However, while all those viewers are united by their love of the beautiful game, they are an incredibly diverse group geographically, culturally, and linguistically. As a result, translation and localization services are crucial to reaching the hearts and minds of all those watching and leaving an impact that lasts long after the tournament's finale.

Here’s how various groups build their brands through the world’s biggest sporting events — and how they rely on language services to maximize their impact.

Organizing Bodies

International tournaments provide one of very few opportunities for global organizing bodies to have their moment in the sun. They capitalize on this brief window of opportunity to drive revenue and maintain the prestige of their events.

One common technique is to use the buzz around tournaments to improve adoption of their existing assets. For sporting organizations, one particularly lucrative opportunity is in video games. This winter’s tournament in the Middle East will be accompanied by a release of new, related downloadable content (DLC) for FIFA 23, the latest release in soccer’s most popular game franchise. The new game modes will undoubtedly drive more of the sport’s fans to pick up the game, which means increased revenue for this already wildly popular product.

Game localization is essential to keeping these new, international users satisfied with their purchase. As new players pour in from across the globe, they expect to be able to play in their native language. This requires fundamental changes to the design and even gameplay of that title, from recording new dialogue to culturalization. These services underpin gameplay in every language. Without them, a poor experience can undo all the player’s goodwill towards the game, franchise, and creator.

Representatives of the tournament organizers also share the limelight at pivotal moments, including speeches, trophy presentations, and individual awards ceremonies. To impress their global viewers and the international community, these key moments are carefully managed through interpretation, translation, and even the use of multiple languages in the speeches themselves. This enables organizing bodies to increase their visibility and makes their leaders globally recognized figures, which helps each organization immensely during their work between tournaments.

National Teams

While every national team is influential in its own country, some teams are iconic brands in their own right. In soccer, Brazil’s serial success, Dutch “Total Football”, and Spain’s tiki-taka style of play have made them powerhouses of the international sport. For other teams, it only takes one successful tournament to elevate their brand to the same level.

Media preparations can start years before the tournament — and teams are using an increasingly diverse range of media opportunities to build awareness. For this Cup cycle, there have been a range of documentaries following different teams through qualifying and other sporting events. Amazon’s All or Nothing: Brazil National Team followed the Brazil squad through their 2019 Copa América campaign, while Captains, which followed the leaders of six national soccer teams through qualifying, was released on Netflix in the runup to the tournament.

To achieve the maximum range possible, these programs rely heavily on subtitling and dubbing. Captains was released in at least two languages and with more than five subtitling options. These give the programs a global reach, captivate international audiences, and build on the status of the teams involved.

National teams also create social media accounts for a range of languages to maintain a global following. The French and German national teams both have English-language Twitter accounts which react in real time to player updates and team results. With follower counts in the hundreds of thousands, both accounts employ multilingual content strategies to create a coherent, compelling brand across multiple languages and cultures.

The Players

International competitions are the pinnacle of sporting achievement. Glory and victory aside, this winter’s tournament provides individual players with the chance to become a global superstar almost overnight. Good tournament performances can lead to big-money moves, sponsorship deals with multinational sports companies, and a massive growth in social media following — particularly since many fans in developing soccer markets follow players rather than teams. For the players and their teams, the focus on performing is intense, both on and off the field.

While many players are multilingual, no-one speaks every language. Players need translators for their social media channels to help them build a global following. Lionel Messi, one of soccer’s biggest stars, is a textbook example of this. Messi is famously introverted and prefers to speak in his native Spanish, yet nearly all of his Instagram posts use both English and Spanish. This translation is crucial to his many sponsorship deals and keeps his global fan base connected.

Similarly, players rely on translation and interpretation to capitalize on branding opportunities throughout the tournament, such as pre- and post-game interviews. These moments provide a closer look at their character and give fans key insights into life during the tournament, all of which is necessary to build a global yet personal brand.

As the two recent greats of the game, Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, approach retirement, the gap at the top of the sport will be decided not only by what is done on the field, but by how fans perceive the next generation as athletes, professionals, and people. Translation is essential to building that connection.

Translation and Your Business

The range of approaches to brand building above gives a brief insight into the complexity of today’s media landscape — and the diverse range of opportunities available to the savvy marketer with a global mindset. And while you may not be a sponsor for an event of this stature or a prodigiously talented global superstar, you can also benefit from translating your own content and localizing your marketing, advertising, and events.

Get in touch with Lionbridge to discover how translation can help you to grow your brand beyond borders and establish your business as an international champion of your industry.