Multilingual Marketing Production for Canon
A 15-year translation and production partnership for one of the world's most recognised brands.
Canon needed its marketing and advertising content to connect with EMEA audiences in multiple languages, so Brightlines paired specialist translators with in-country editors to deliver 55+ magazine issues, prestige coffee table books, digital campaigns and brand content, all publication-ready.
The challenge
Canon produces marketing content at volume for National Sales Organisations (NSOs) across Europe, the Middle East and Africa. Internal magazines, prestige publications, advertising campaigns, digital content. Every piece needs to connect with local audiences in their own language, on deadline, at a standard that protects a global brand.
That volume of content across that many languages needs continuity. If translators rotate and brand voice drifts, the tone in issue 40 no longer matches issue 1. Canon needed a single partner who could keep the voice consistent across languages, formats and years, and handle production too, delivering publication-ready layouts rather than just translated text.
Our approach
Every translation starts with a specialist who understands Canon's products and brand language. For all marketing and advertising content, our in-country editors then adapt the copy so it connects with each local audience, keeping the message but saying it in a way that resonates in that market.
We assigned a dedicated team that has stayed with Canon's account for the full partnership. The translators who worked on issue 1 of the internal magazine "You Can" still understand the brand voice well enough to turn around issue 55 without a lengthy brief. We integrated translation and multilingual DTP into one workflow: Canon and its agencies send source files, we return publication-ready layouts.
We also liaised directly with each market's marketing director, managing feedback, sign-off and local preferences. English was the Canon Europe voice, but each market had its own way of saying things. We handled those conversations so Canon's central team didn't have to.
What we delivered
- 55+ issues of "You Can" internal magazine, translated and artworked for EMEA distribution
- Multiple prestige coffee table books including a 168-page commemorative publication for Canon Europe
- German-language blog content for Canon's Project 1709 photography platform
- Translation of the CEO's annual New Year address, delivered on call outside normal working hours
- Multilingual DTP and artworking to publication-ready standard across all formats
- 15+ year partnership, same core team throughout
The outcome
- Marketing content that connects with local audiences across EMEA, not content that reads like a translation
- Consistent brand voice maintained across 55+ magazine issues and all other collateral
- Publication-ready delivery, eliminating a separate DTP coordination step
- Flexible capacity for urgent, out-of-hours requests
- No onboarding overhead: same team for 15+ years
How we can help
If your marketing content needs to connect with audiences in every market, not just be translated, that is exactly what we do. As a specialist marketing translation agency, we adapt copy for local audiences across every sector. Your teams get publications that sell, not ones they have to fix.
