This was an interesting project; how could we retain Virgin Atlantic’s core Britishness, yet still reflect the cultures of the Gulf, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, India, China and Japan.
We began by using native-speaking copywriters to produce work that appealed to the markets that weren’t so familiar with Virgin. Our writers had to understand British wit and understatement and craft their copy so their audience were in on it too. We wanted no room for any ambiguity.
Working closely with Virgin Atlantic’s digital PR agency we created a series of frequent-flyer emails that were sympathetic to the disparate cultures, and followed that up by developing a comprehensive toolkit of translation guidelines.