Urdu is not a translation layer
Pakistani campaigns are still conceived in English and rendered into Urdu at the end, which is the point at which the idea usually stops working.
The sequence is almost universal: the strategy is written in English, the idea is developed in English, it is approved in English by people who are comfortable in English, and then it is translated. The audience meets the fourth version of something that was never built for them.
What gets lost is structure, not vocabulary
Translation handles words. What it cannot handle is that the two languages carry emphasis differently, hold a joke differently and place the punch in a different position in the sentence. A line that lands in English because the surprise is at the end frequently arrives in Urdu with the surprise in the middle, where it is not a surprise.
The result is not offensive or incorrect. It is flat, which is harder to argue about in a review and much more expensive in market.
The fix is a sequencing change, not a bigger budget
- Develop the line in Urdu alongside the English one, from the strategy, not after the idea is locked.
- Approve in the language it will run in. A campaign signed off in English has not been signed off.
- Cast for the language. Delivery carries as much of the meaning as the script does here.
- Accept two versions that differ. Insisting the Urdu be a faithful rendering of the English is insisting it be worse.
Nobody in the room is deciding whether the Urdu is good. They are deciding whether it matches the English, which is a different question and the wrong one.
