Arabic is not a translation

Nobody is annoyed by a translated ad. That is the problem. They just do not hear it.

Here is how most Arabic copy in this region gets made. The campaign is written in English, in London or in Dubai, by a team that thinks in English. It is approved in English. Then, close to the deadline, it goes to a translator, who does a faithful job, and the faithful job is the failure.

The English line was built on a rhythm, a pun, a reference, a way of being casual that English has and Arabic has differently. The translator preserves the meaning and loses the reason the line existed. What comes back is correct and inert. It reads like a label. The eye passes over it the way it passes over the terms and conditions, the report says Arabic creative underperforms, and the conclusion drawn is that the market prefers English.

The market does not prefer English. The market prefers being spoken to.

Copy written in Arabic, by someone who thinks in it and knows which Arabic, is a different object. It has its own rhythm and its own jokes. It knows that a line that lands in Cairo can sound like a stranger in Riyadh, and that a formal register can make a brand sound like a ministry. It starts from what the person would actually say, in the dialect they say it in, and works outward.

That is not a translation budget. It is a writer, and it costs what a writer costs, and it is the cheapest performance improvement available to most brands operating here.

I have watched the same offer, in the same market, on the same budget, change its results on nothing but this. The offer did not change. The language did.

Write it in Arabic. Do not write it and then make it Arabic.