Ever read a perfectly translated ad that still felt off? That’s the gap transcreation closes. Instead of swapping words line‑for‑line, transcreation rebuilds a message so it lands with the same punch, humor, and emotion in every market.
In this article, we’ll skip dwelling too much on theory and dive straight into real campaigns that nailed it (and a few niche gems you might have missed).
Each transcreation example shows how a simple tweak like changing a headline, re‑shooting a visual, or even rewriting a whole story, can turn “just okay” localization into brand love and higher sales.
🧠 No-fluff guide
At Lokalise, we always aim to bring you actionable tips and inspiration. After reading this piece, you’ll come away with two things. First, you’ll get a clear sense of what transcreation actually looks like in the wild. Second, you’ll discover practical takeaways you can steal for your own global launches.
What is transcreation?
Transcreation is the creative rewriting of content for a new language and culture so it triggers the same feeling and action as the original.
Transcreation sits at the crossroads of translation, copywriting, and brand strategy. It keeps the idea of a message but gives it a new form so it feels home‑grown in every market.
- Transcreation goal: To rewrite and recreate content in a new language so that it matches intent, tone, and emotional weight of the source
- Scope: Covers copy, visuals, humor, cultural references, even color or layout choices
- Process: Starts with a creative brief, then a linguist‑copywriter re‑imagines the piece, often testing it with people from the target culture
You can think of the chain:
Plain translation > Localization > Transcreation
Plain translation reproduces meaning, often word-for-word, localization adapts for legal, technical, and UX fit, and then transcreation rebuilds for cultural impact and brand voice.
📚 Further reading: Want to learn more about transcreation vs. translation? We got you covered.
Why real examples matter more than definitions
Definitions tell you what transcreation is. Examples show you what it does. Getting more familiar with real campaigns helps you defend a budget line or brief a copywriter in a way that increases your chances of success.
Learning about real-world campaigns is important because:
- They expose the stakes (e.g., seeing a slogan that doubled sales makes it clear how much a single line can help a launch)
- They unpack the craft (e.g., a side‑by‑side look at original vs. transcreated copy reveals the choices behind a winning rewrite)
- They deliver plug-and-play tactics (it’s easier to come up with ideas when you feed your mind with campaigns others did)
- They help you build a business case (numbers attached to real campaigns speak louder in budget meetings than any theoretical pitch)
That’s why the rest of this article leans on case studies and quick takeaways. You’ll see how brands, from household names to niche players, moved beyond word‑for‑word translation and won. Then you can borrow what fits and avoid their mistakes.
Famous brand transcreation wins
Big budgets can pay for new shoots and celebrity voice‑overs. But money alone won’t make marketing copy ring true in a different culture. What really sells abroad is the quiet craft of reshaping an idea so it sounds like it was really born there. Three campaigns show how that works in practice.
Mastercard: “Priceless” in every language
Back in 1997, Mastercard needed a fresh hook to close the gap with Visa. McCann’s “Priceless” formula (three price tags, one priceless moment), gave the brand an emotional spine that translation alone could never manage.
Rather than shoe‑horning the English line into new markets, local teams kept the three‑price‑tag rhythm and swapped in native idioms:
- “No tiene precio” in Spanish‑speaking America
- “Ça n’a pas de prix” in France
- “Nema cenu” in Serbia
Beyond language, Mastercard made sure to adjust commercials to local cultures so that they feel specific and relevant. When you open the website priceless.com, you’ll likely automatically be redirected to the localized page, depending on your geo.
The platform now runs in 53 languages across 112 countries, and has pushed global brand awareness above 80%.
🗒️ Key lesson from Mastercard’s transcreation
Lock the narrative frame, but let each market rewrite the punch line. A familiar cadence makes the swap frictionless.
Snickers: “You’re not you when you’re hungry”
Launched during the 2010 Super Bowl, the now-famous line tapped a universal truth: hanger changes personality. Snickers relied on comedy cameos to drive it home.
The goal was to revive a trusted brand without tinkering with the bar itself. This is why their creative team thought it would be funny to play with the mood swings of hunger (what a bulls-eye). Let’s see how they transcreated this campaign for different markets.
- US and UK: Invested in TV commercials with Betty White and Rowan Atkinson, plus introduced limited‑edition packs labelled Cranky, Grouchy, and Drama Queen.
- Spain and LatAm: The same insight delivered in street‑ready Spanish: “No eres tú cuando tienes hambre.”
- 50+ other markets: Relied on local-specific slang and casting, but always the same set‑up and pay‑off.
Year one delivered a 15.9% jump in global sales, which translates to $376 million of extra revenue (without touching the chocolate bar’s recipe).
🗒️ Key lesson from Snicker’s transcreation
When humor drives the concept, rewrite the punch line in words people actually use. Local slang sells the set‑up. Your product only seals the deal.
AirBnb: “Belong anywhere” gets transcreated for France
The tagline “Belong Anywhere” captured Airbnb’s mission perfectly. However, the English wording felt too abstract in France, and we’re talking about their second‑largest market. Something had to be done.
The core idea is that you should feel at home, everywhere. This is why the tagline shifted to “Soyez chez vous partout” (“Feel at home everywhere”). It anchors the promise in the deeply French notion of chez soi (home as a protected, sacred space).
TBWA’s Paris‐shot “Live There” spots recast tourists as temporary locals and closed on the French line. The same wording ran on Metro posters and social ads. Global hero shots of Manhattan lofts gave way to cosy chambres de bonne, Breton stone cottages and Provencal farmhouses. These were the homes a French traveller might actually rent.
Partnerships played an important role here. To drive the “home‑everywhere” story outside big cities, Airbnb teamed up with the Tour de France. Within the platform, they highlighted listings along the race route and pushed traffic to rural hosts.
AirBnb’s internal data shows the country helped the platform hit a record 4 million guest stays in a single night, which was quite an impressive milestone the company used to prove its mission of “belonging” was scaling.
French regulators still push back, but the brand’s rural focus has softened “Airbnb vs. housing” headlines, and broadened host advocacy outside Paris.
🗒️ Key takeaway from AirBnb’s transcreation
Find the local word that already carries your promise, let creatives rebuild around it, then prove you mean it with partnerships or product tweaks. When the phrase feels like something people would say unprompted, the budget you spent on media works twice as hard.
Niche brand transaction examples
Global giants aren’t the only ones rewriting copy for local ears. Challenger brands often have to be sharper because they can’t afford a mis‑hit.
The three stories below show how smaller players used transcreation to punch above their weight (and what happened when they did).
Oatly: When a lawsuit turns into the best ad ever
Do you know what happened after a Swedish dairy lobby sued Oatly for the line “It’s like milk, but made for humans”? The oat‑milk brand doubled down rather than back down.
First, Oatly rebuilt every carton in loud block letters, switching all side‑of‑pack copy from Swedish to a chatty English that would work in Stockholm, London, or Seoul.
When the slogan was banned at home, Oatly carried it to the UK. They spent £700K on London Underground posters that yelled the phrase in commuters’ faces. The cheek stayed intact, and it was a massive success (so much it even led to shortages).
European revenue jumped from $15M to $69M in just two years after the rebrand. The banned‑in‑Sweden line has since been photographed (and memed) in at least nine languages.
🗒️ Key takeaway from Oatley’s transcreation
If your brand voice is the product, translate the attitude, not the syntax. A single irreverent line can cross borders as long as the tone feels native to each market’s sense of humor.
Stabilo: Highlighting untold stories
German agency DDB ran a print series that drew a neon‑yellow highlighter line across archival photos of under‑credited women like NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson. The tagline was “Die Bemerkenswerte hervorheben”, or translated to English, “Highlight the Remarkable”. Very clever and inspiring.
Once the ads took off on German social feeds, Stabilo translated copy blocks and case captions for export versions. They did so while keeping the single English‑language headline short, shareable, and easy to meme. The layout stayed, and the explanatory body copy was adjusted for each market.
The campaign generated 10M Twitter impressions, 300K+ likes and 150K+ retweets in its first month, and went on to win Gold at Cannes Lions.
🗒️ Key takeaway from Stablio’s transcreation
Visual structure can travel unchanged, but the surrounding words shouldn’t. Translate context, keep the hook, and let social media do the rest.
InnocentDrinks: Transcreating smoothie names
Innocent built its UK following on cheeky smoothie names like “Skip to the Beet” and “Bolt from the Blue”. The trouble was that almost every flavor name is a pun, and wordplay collapses the moment you leave English.
Rather than ship literal translations to France and Germany, Innocent hired a transcreation team and gave them an open brief: rewrite every name from scratch, as long as it felt just as playful. This thing is, you don’t translate “Skip to the Beet”, you invent a new joke people will actually get.
Local copywriters spent weeks road‑testing alternatives. They checked slang with supermarket shoppers, and swapped veg‑based puns for rhymes or alliteration. They did so until each bottle on the continent carried a joke that made sense in its own language.The pay‑off showed up in the numbers.
By the end of 2019, Innocent reported 8.6% revenue growth and a 21.3% share of the chilled‑juice category across Western Europe. This was a jump the company linked partly to deeper penetration in France and Germany, where the renamed range rolled out first.
🗒️ Key takeaway from Innocent’s transcreation
When humor is the brand’s calling card, give local creatives permission to rebuild the joke. Puns rarely cross borders intact, but the upbeat personality can (if you start over in the audience’s own language).
Bringing it all together
Every example in this piece, whether it was Mastercard tweaking a single phrase or Innocent rewriting an entire line‑up of flavor names, points to the same rule. Good transcreation protects the feeling while letting the words roam free.
When that happens, slogans live longer, campaigns travel further, and smaller brands punch well above their weight.
As the last takeaway, remember these three things to successfully transcreate:
- Guard the big idea: Keep the promise or insight that makes the message tick
- Loosen the language: Rewrite jokes, idioms, or headlines until they sound like local conversation, not an import with subtitles
- Prove you mean it: Back the new words with visuals, partnerships, or product tweaks that belong to the market you’re entering
Get those parts right, and the next time your logo crosses a border, the copy will feel like it never left home.
