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tranfree issue 13 - 15th April 2000
I don't want this job thanks - but I'll do it anyway
By Alex Eames
Do you ever have your best clients trying to give you work which you don't want? This happened to us recently. Let me tell you about the job...
It was about 500 words and was made up of 9 or 10 short general 'we are marvellous' magazine advertisements for some bank or other. It was for a focus group - a bunch of members of the public come in and sit around drinking coffee and discussing various things related to this company's market research. (e.g. Which of these adverts makes you think our bank is not like all the rest, where profit is the only motivator? That sort of thing.)
Focus groups are expensive to set up because it takes a lot of telemarketing to get people to show up. So are advertising campaigns. Taking a quick look at these beautifully crafted adverts - all with 'oh so clever' plays on words that would certainly get lost in translation - I started thinking. I bet each of these advertisements had cost thousands to create, typeset etc. Probably the advertising creatives spent a whole week writing each one, after carefully...
 ...ignoring
the client's brief. 
So here was the proposition - translate all these overnight for 40 pounds ($66). Something's wrong here somewhere! These sorts of jobs are to be avoided like the plague. They are next to impossible to do well within such time and budget constraints. What happens if they decide to run our copy in a full-page magazine spread costing several thousand? You've all heard the stories. That's a liability we won't swallow!
So what we did was explain all of the above to our client, who explained it to his client. Then they said "we want you to do it anyway - it's only for a focus group". So we agreed, but disclaimed all responsibility for it. Have you ever tried to translate a banking related pun into a language with only a handful of double entendres? The only solution was to stick to trying to convey our interpretation of the original's meaning. We also attached the proviso "this work should be reviewed by your local in-country team of marketing creatives."
We really didn't want to put our names to something we knew would be no good, but sometimes you just have to keep your clients happy. As long as you don't do it by opening yourself up to huge liabilities you should be OK.
Keep communicating with your clients and get the best of both worlds!
Alex Eames is the founder of translatortips.com,
editor of tranfree and author of the eBook...
How to Earn $80,000+ Per Year as a Freelance Translator
http://www.translatortips.net/ht50.html
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