Transimage Inc. (article in the New York Times)

1. February 13, 1994
NEW YORKERS & CO.; Luring Two Pigeons With
One Bean
By TOM REDBURN
WHY did General Motors have such a hard time when it started marketing its Chevrolet Nova in Latin
America? Quite simple. "No va" means "no go" in Spanish.
How do you kill two birds with one stone in German? You hit two flies with one swat. In Italian, you
lure two pigeons with one bean. In Korean, you catch two fish with one rod.
It was to perform such linguistic and cultural pirouettes that TransImage International Communications
was created nearly five years ago. From its headquarters in an old printing factory in TriBeCa, the
company offers communication and marketing services to American corporations doing business
anywhere in the world, everything from developing ads in foreign languages to refocusing brochures to
vetting television commercials.
When Time-Warner decided to offer its first annual report in six languages, it turned to TransImage.
When a major communications company wanted to make sure there were no cultural bloopers in its
commercials, it had them checked by TransImage (which did notice that one ad, set in Hong Kong, had
a brothel in the background). And when the state of Oregon wanted to market itself as an international
tourist destination, it contracted with TransImage to produce a Pop Art-style video for Japanese and
German audiences.
Indeed, TransImage is finding itself at the leading edge -- along with dozens of other highly specialized,
internationally oriented service companies that now thrive in Manhattan -- as New York carves out a
position as perhaps the world's most important center for global business.
"New York's roots in the international marketplace are especially significant
today," wrote Hugh O'Neill
and Mitchell M. Moss in "Reinventing New York: Competing in the Next Century's Global Economy,"
an influential 1991 economic study for the Urban Research Center at New York University. New York's
prosperity, they concluded, will flow "primarily from its role as the leading -- although by no means
unchallenged -- urban center in an increasingly integrated world economy."
For Magda Sole, 35, a co-owner of TransImage, American business is just beginning to learn a lesson
already well established in most other countries. "If you are just buying, you can do that in any
language," she says. "But if you are trying to sell someone something, the key is to communicate in your
customer's language."
She knows what she is talking about. Ms. Sole, who speaks seven languages, was born in Barcelona and
educated in Switzerland. She worked in Italy before coming to New York 10 years ago. Her partner,

2. David Halvorsen, a 41-year-old American, spent several years studying and working in Sweden.
TransImage's staff reflects New York in all its cultural diversity. Maha See, its director of operations, is
from Myanmar and has lived in Singapore. He speaks Burmese, Chinese and several other languages.
One project manager, Frederic Autran, is French. Another, Naoko Okabe, came to New York from
Tokyo as a student. (The staff of 16 does include a few native New Yorkers.)
Ms. Sole and Mr. Halvorsen, longtime friends, founded TransImage in 1990 after deciding they were
dissatisfied with their jobs -- she with a translation company, he as a computer and communications
manager for Merrill Lynch. They also felt the time was right for a company that could do more than
provide standard translations.
TransImage opened its doors just as the regional economic downturn was turning its full fury on New
York City. Nonetheless, the company has grown rapidly, recently moving from its old scruffy office on
Franklin Street to a larger, custom-designed space in a Hudson Street building. Last year, TransImage
billed more than $2.5 million to about 300 clients.
The way the company is run accounts, in part, for its ability to adapt to a changing world marketplace:
TransImage is an exemplar of an emerging business trend that experts call the virtual company. In place
of the standard organizational structure, in which everyone works out of the same office or is part of a
more far-flung but fixed management system, TransImage operates flexibly with its small staff core. Via
fax, E-mail and even old-fashioned telephone, that core coordinates the activities of nearly 350 freelance
translators, editors, writers and designers around the world.
THERE is little place for traditional corporate culture at TransImage. Everyone works in a big open
space divided into three areas -- for design, production and marketing. The few separate offices are
shared as needed. It is difficult to tell where one job ends and another begins.
The company can draw on expertise in 80 different languages, as well as knowledge of a panoply of
cultures.
In advising American companies on marketing in France, Mr. Autran, for example, discusses how to
avoid offending French sensibilities.
"The French are enamored by American products, yet threatened by American cultural imperialism," he
said. "We tell them how to avoid a faux pas that might cost them sales." Mr. Autran points to
Eurodisney, just outside Paris, as one company that underestimated that problem.
Similarly, TransImage helped a United States auto parts company enter the Japanese market by
developing a brochure modeled on advertising popular in that country. Rather than using glitzy
American techniques, the brochure included long interviews with Japanese executives discussing the
future of the industry. Only at the very end did the company even mention its own name.
Colors and images also mean different things in different cultures. Some carry particular messages.
Green, the color of Mohammad's flag, must be used with care in Islamic countries, as must blue in
nations with a Greek Orthodox population. Orange is sensitive in Buddhism. Yellow, which in America
connotes cowardice (a yellow streak) or faithfulness (a yellow ribbon), carries religious and mystical
overtones in India. In China, yellow represents both the Emperor and pornography.
Design features that may work in the United States, like bold elements with bright, trendy colors, could

3. come on too strong in Japan, where black, white and pastel dominate.
Many American companies, with their assumption that English has become a universal language and
American standards predominate, suffer when they fail to take such differences into account.
But cultural misunderstanding works in reverse, too. Mr. See remembers a trip to Japan at Christmas
time. In a cafe, there was a sign: "Happy Birthday, Jesus Christ Superstar."
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