About

The Weetabix Food Company is one of the UK’s largest producers of cereals. Home to leading brands such as Ready brek, Oatibix and Alpen, the company exports its breakfast cereals to more than 80 countries around the world. In 2011 the company embarked on a £7m marketing campaign to transform the €100m a year Weetabix brand. Underpinned by the new strapline ‘slow-release energy’ the campaign was communicated across a host of platforms including radio, social media, smartphone devices and advertising.

Our Translation Services

Bubbles was tasked with providing exacting translation services to enable Weetabix to effectively communicate the new brand positioning and messaging to partners and consumers in each of the target export countries.

Critical translations were required for packaging, contract agreements, websites and competition literature in order for the brand to demonstrate that its products and services were capable of overcoming cultural barriers.

The Challenge

Weetabix’s overseas advertising messages are very different from its UK positioning. For example, in the UK, the ‘Fuel for a Big Day’ campaign has been developed on the back of localised insight that has resulted in the use of an emotional positioning, used to communicate how Weetabix can help families get through a busy day.

However, in less developed markets, the brand message is far more functional with the focus firmly placed on communicating the health benefits of the product. Literal translation was therefore not an option.

In addition to these nuances, Bubbles also needed to be mindful that the text length of key wording could increase by up to 30%, depending on the language it was being translated into. Careful consideration therefore needed to be given to the documentation and packaging design for each language and country.

The Solution

All translators at Bubbles are native-speaking and educated to at least degree level with considerable experience in language translations within their specialist field.

Bubbles was able to establish separate teams of translators in each of the different languages to handle the different types of text that required translating. Specialist legal translators were assigned to translate contracts, agreements and competition regulations; and specialist marketing translators to translate packaging, websites and competition literature.

Bubbles was also able to offer the option of providing the customer with a sample batch to gain valuable feedback and identify any problematic areas as soon as possible.

Added Value

As a result of the reliable service provided by Bubbles, Weetabix has expanded the number of languages that it needs translating, including material that had previously been resourced internally.

With quality reassurances firmly in place, Weetabix’s distributors and colleagues are able to free up their time to further concentrate on day-to-day activities and increasing sales.