Background and Scope
My Hairdressers is the world’s largest online educational resource for hairdressers, with international licenses across 44 different countries. Today Translations was approached to deliver language services for the Middle Eastern launch of training videos, including L’Oréal products. The project scope included website and product description translation, as well as the transcription, translation and localisation of over 200 videos ahead of the high-profile launch event in Dubai

Processes & Outcomes
One of the biggest challenges was to localise liberal Western content to be more culturally appropriate for a conservative target audience in the Middle East. Today Translations used one of its Arabic localization specialists with expertise in the beauty industry to test and select native speaking language experts that would be tasked to translate and localise website content. In addition, the team was tasked with cultural research to review news-related items and social media activity to ensure all relevant latest trends were followed. As a result, key terminology glossaries were created and integrated into our Translation Memory systems, ensuring absolute consistency across content.

The video content was initially transcribed and translated, allowing Today Translations to create a translated script. This script was then used by our client-approved native-Arabic voiceover artists to record the audio over video in the professional sound studios sourced by Today Translations. This was a fully outsourced process by My Hairdressers to Today Translations.

The website was launched alongside a dedicated micro-site for L’Oréal professional customers ahead of the Beautyworld Middle East trade show in Dubai, and My Hairdressers (www.myhairdressers.com) became the first company in the world to provide hairdressing training online in Arabic. The content was well received by the audience and it continues to be used.