6 reasons why localising DEI content is good for your brand

Amid all the noise of Valentine’s Day campaigns and messaging, let’s take a different look at how to make your brand stand out.

Localising your diversity, equality and inclusivity (DEI) content is a refreshing and impactful way brands create meaningful relationships with audiences old and new.

Even better – it’s good for business.

Investing in DEI is a brand strategy that pays off in more ways than one:

• More diversity drives better financial performance

Studies show that a more diverse workforce leads to, on average, 19% higher revenues.

• Investing in DEI attracts better talent

76% of job seekers prefer diverse companies and teams.

• Inclusivity boosts employee engagement

A McKinsey study showed that employees working for inclusive companies were 3x more engaged.

• More diversity means more creativity

Diverse and inclusive brands are twice as likely to become innovation leaders.

By its very nature, localisation and translation are forms of diversity, equality and inclusion. Making your content and communications accessible to everyone gives everyone equal access to understanding, and makes the workplace and the marketplace a level playing field.

But there are specific reasons why localising your DEI content is good for your brand.

Reason 1: Making non-English speakers feel included

The world is overly English-centric.

While over half the content on the internet is in English, less than 5% of internet users speak English as their native language.

Source: Chartr

Localising your content ensures you don’t alienate any of your audience, from customers to co-workers.

And it doesn’t have to cost the earth; AI-powered machine translation can be a much quicker, cheaper alternative to creating content directly in other languages, or using a human translator. While an AI solution may not be the most polished, perfect approach, it’s still a way of ensuring greater levels of inclusivity than not translating at all.

Reason 2: Make your brand appeal to younger audiences

Not only is the world getting more diverse, but younger audiences are showing a strong preference for more inclusive and diverse brands.

Whether your DEI content is for marketing purposes, training, hiring, internal comms… Whoever the intended reader is, they are likely to appreciate you taking the time and effort to demonstrate your values.

Reason 3: Outperform competitors by being truly customer-centric

With a more diverse audience, customer experiences need to become truly personalised.

Less diverse companies tend to fall into the “groupthink” trap – designing shopping experiences, comms programs, campaigns, and onboarding processes – fit for one audience, people like them.

How can a predominantly white, male, straight UX team based in South East England know what an ideal customer journey is for someone who looks, feels, and is received by the world differently?

Running all your comms through a linguistic or cultural audit is essential; localisation experts will help you spot potential pitfalls and optimise all your customer experiences.

Reason 4: Cultural sensitivity to gender

Gender is hugely sensitive to cultural norms.

What constitutes a “strong female” persona will be different for the US than for India, for example, so it’s important to localise creative content to be sure your images or messaging resonate with the intended audience.

And as this graph shows, events like International Women’s Day that you might, as a company or a brand, want to celebrate, are observed very differently around the world:

Source: Wikipedia

Reason 5: Cultural sensitivity to LGBTQI+

Similar to gender, the perception of LGBTQI+ can vary hugely by country.

For example, in many parts of the world, it’s still a crime to be homosexual. By contrast, much of western and northern Europe have some of the highest levels of equality rights in the world:

Source: ILGA Europe

So understanding your audience, from clients to customers to colleagues, will help you design messaging that connects in the way you intended.

Reason 6: Become known as a DEI leader

As Diversity and Inclusion have become higher priorities in the workplace, we’re seeing organisations shape themselves to make sure DEI is on the agenda. Research shows that 44% of companies have DEI sitting with C-Suite leaders.

But how many brands are thinking about the intersection, and the opportunity, for globalising their DEI efforts?

In our minds, as DEI and localisation become stronger allies and higher priorities for brands in general, localising your DEI content and strategy is an investment in your company, your clients and your people.

Great! We’d love to help.

As the UK’s first B Corp-certified translation company, Comtec is committed to DEI. We love working with brands who share our passion for diversity and inclusion.

We offer a whole range of services designed to help brands create and translate content for any audience.

We pride ourselves on being known as the cultural experts within the localisation and translation industry – working with highly-trained experts who are at the forefront of research and best practice in the understanding of how culture affects everything we do.

Covering more than 250 languages (including sign language!), these are just some of the services we can help with to ensure your content is truly inclusive:

• Cultural Audits – checking content (campaigns, messaging, training material) is fit for purpose and will land the way you intend.
• Strategic Planning – Want to understand how to use localisation to create value for your brand? We can advise on the best, most impactful and most efficient way forward.
• Cultural Workshops – want to understand how your workplace or your marketing could be more impactful? We run workshops to help train teams on exactly this.
• Expert Localisation – our in-market linguists will be able to translate any content, ensuring it hits the mark for your audience
• Linguistic Audits – not sure if you have the right pronouns? Or how to talk about diversity and inclusion in another language, for another market? We can help.
• Localisation Consultancy – perhaps you just want an expert opinion on a campaign, which markets to focus on, or how best to make sure your L&D program is fully inclusive. Consultancy is a good option and a sound investment.

Want to know more? Get in touch today and see how Comtec can help you take your DEI strategy global.