Publicis Communications Production Company, Prodigious, Acquires Translate Plus, Translation and Transcreation Company

Prodigious, Publicis Communications’ cross-media production platform, announces the acquisition of Translate Plus, a leading global language services provider with expertise in transcreation.

Prodigious, part of Publicis Communications, Publicis Groupe’s creative solution hub, brings together specialist production expertise in print, video and digital to deliver campaign and marketing assets and content that help world-leading brands better meet the content production needs of today. An increasing part of their activity consists in localising marketing and campaign material across markets for clients including GSK, HPE, L’Oréal, Nestlé, P&G, Renault and Sanofi.

The expertise brought by Translate Plus will considerably accelerate the localisation aspect of Prodigious’ business by offering direct access to in-house translation and transcreation services. Localisation ensures adaptation of marketing material and alignment to the cultural and legal requirements of local markets, across content, language and format. A key aspect of this activity is transcreation, a specialism that consists in translating creative copy, which unlike traditional translation, requires several different translations of the same copy with back-translations and rational. This ensures the creative idea is optimally conveyed, while being culturally relevant locally.

Founded in 2008, Translate Plus counts over 130 employees across 10 international offices in London, the Netherlands, Germany, Denmark, Sweden, Italy, Bulgaria, Washington DC, China and Japan. Translate Plus offers tailored solutions that help global brands expand their footprint across markets worldwide, thanks to a full range of services, including translation, transcreation, website localisation, multilingual SEO, interpreting, desktoppublishing, transcription and voiceover. Translate Plus has access to a network of 9,000 specialists in translation and transcreation, across 200 languages and markets.

All this is accelerated by its cutting-edge and secure cloud-based TMS (translation management system), i plus®. With industry-specific solutions across a wide range of sectors, Translate Plus services prestigious global clients such as Mondelez, Porsche Consulting, Reckitt Benckiser, Rentalcars and RICOH.

“Translate Plus is an invaluable addition to our services”, comments Jean-François Valent, CEO, Prodigious worldwide. “We share with them the belief that brands need global efficiency with local market intelligence. With our network of 40 production locations worldwide now complemented by 4,000 native-speaker copywriters and editors, 5,000 specialist transcreators, covering 200 markets globally, we are in a unique position to deliver on our promise”.

“We will continue to service our existing clients as always. Even better though, Prodigious now offers us immediate further reach into many more markets and scale globally,” adds Robert Timms, co-owner and Managing Director, Translate Plus. “Moreover we will be able to leverage Prodigious’ smart production models to deliver greater efficiency across the board to our clients”.

“This acquisition marks an extremely important milestone in our journey as we aim to become the largest language services partner for global brands. Extended reach is one thing but the additional knowledge pool Prodigious will give us access to, provides us with a true advantage which we aim to leverage to the maximum,” concludes Per Severinsen, Danish co-owner and Managing Director, Translate Plus.