Your brand has been translated into Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. But is it still your brand? Over time, different translators, agencies, and local teams introduce inconsistencies: your tagline means something different in Japan than in China, your tone is formal in one market and casual in another, your core messages have shifted. The result is a fragmented brand presence in Asia, often unnoticed. The Brand Consistency Audit creates clarity: systematic, market-specific, and with a ready-to-use style guide framework as a deliverable.
| Existing Asia Presence | Companies that already have translated materials for China, Japan, or Korea but are not sure whether their brand message is still being communicated consistently. |
| Brand Refresh | Marketing teams looking to realign or update their brand presence across multiple Asian markets. |
| New Brand Responsibility | New CMOs or brand managers taking on international responsibility who first need to understand the status quo. |
| After Mergers or Acquisitions | Companies that want to consolidate multiple brand versions in Asian markets following an M&A transaction. |
| Content Without Quality Review | Anyone whose Asian content has not been systematically reviewed for two or more years and who wants to know where their brand presence stands. |
An assessment of your brand presence per language with clear ratings: a structured overview of the status quo across all reviewed markets.
Shows what your messages actually communicate in the target market: not what you intended, but what lands.
Concrete examples of brand drift: where terminology varies, where the tone is off, where core messages have been diluted.
Not an unstructured list of problems, but a clear action plan: what should be corrected immediately and what can wait.
Tone, terminology, and formality guidelines per language: a ready-to-use briefing document for future brand localisation projects.
A 30-minute remote call: we present the findings, answer your questions, and discuss sensible next steps.
For each target language, a native speaker evaluates the localised content against standardised criteria: formality level, emotional impact of the tagline, brand personality, and terminology consistency. Not a subjective individual opinion, but a structured assessment based on defined criteria.
For the critical elements, tagline, core messages, and value proposition, we conduct a backtranslation. This makes semantic deviations visible that remain invisible in a purely linguistic review.
All individual assessments are compiled in a consistency matrix and evaluated across languages. In parallel, the style guide framework is developed with documented decisions on tone, terminology, and formality.
The Basic Audit is the ideal starting point for companies that want to review two markets, for example China and Japan or Japan and Korea. It includes the native speaker assessment for both languages, backtranslation of core messages, the consistency matrix and style guide framework, and the results presentation. Optional: correction suggestions with 2 to 3 transcreation alternatives for tagline and core messages.
The Standard Audit provides full CJK coverage: China, Japan, and Korea are reviewed simultaneously and compared in a consistency matrix. The style guide framework includes guidelines for all three languages. This audit is the right choice for companies that want a complete overview of their brand presence in Asia and want to bring it into alignment.
The Comprehensive Audit extends the CJK review to additional Asian markets, such as Vietnamese, Indonesian, or Thai. It is designed for companies active in multiple Southeast Asian markets that want to ensure a consistent brand presence across the region. Each additional language can be added flexibly.
| Industry | Industrial goods / mechanical engineering |
| Package | Standard Audit (China, Japan, Korea) |
| Starting Situation | The tagline “Engineering Excellence” of a German industrial company had been translated into all three languages by three different agencies over several years. Before a planned brand refresh, the company wanted to know whether the tagline was being communicated consistently across all markets. |
| Finding | The backtranslation analysis revealed: China rendered it as “Construction Excellence” (wrong domain), Japan as “Engineering Superiority” (too aggressive for the Japanese B2B context), Korea as “Engineering Goodness” (too weak, no premium signal). The same tagline, three different brand personalities. |
| Result | The company received a prioritised action plan. The immediate measure was the redevelopment of the Chinese tagline through transcreation. Adaptation suggestions were delivered for Japan and Korea. The style guide framework ensures that all three language versions will be developed from a consistent brand logic going forward. |
B2B Communication
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The Basic Audit reviews two languages and is ideal as a starting point or when two markets are the focus. The Standard Audit provides full CJK coverage: China, Japan, and Korea, and is the right choice for companies that want a complete overview of their brand presence in these markets. The Comprehensive Audit extends the review flexibly to additional languages such as Vietnamese, Indonesian, or Thai.
In a backtranslation, a translated version is rendered back into the source language without reference to the original. The result shows what your message actually communicates in the target market. The method makes semantic deviations visible that go undetected in a purely linguistic review: for example when a tagline loses its impact or an unintended connotation has emerged.
Brand drift describes the gradual divergence of brand identity across different language versions. It typically arises through the use of different translators or agencies over several years, through missing or outdated style guides, and through local adaptations without overarching quality control. Typical signs: your tone sounds more formal in Japan than in China, product names appear in multiple spellings, or your core message carries a different meaning in one market than intended.
The Audit concludes with a style guide framework and prioritised recommendations. Depending on the results, sensible next steps may include transcreation for critical elements, a full Asian market style guide, terminology management, or correction translations. We discuss this together in the results presentation.
The Audit is primarily designed for Chinese (Simplified and Traditional), Japanese, and Korean: the three markets with the highest brand localisation complexity and the greatest risk of brand drift. For additional Asian languages such as Vietnamese, Indonesian, or Thai, the Comprehensive version of the Audit is the right choice.
In the Chinese market, brand consistency issues frequently arise through the use of different local agencies over several years, each making different terminology decisions that gradually diverge. In addition, English brand terms are often transferred into Chinese phonetically or semantically, with very different connotations depending on the approach taken. The Brand Consistency Audit makes these deviations systematically visible.
Japanese presents particular challenges for brands: formality level, register, and the choice between katakana and kanji renderings all influence how a brand is perceived. What sounds confident in German can quickly come across as arrogant in Japanese. The Audit assesses whether your Japanese brand communication strikes the right tone without losing the premium signal.
In the Korean market, B2B decision-makers are sensitive to tone and hierarchy signals in brand communication. English loanwords are frequently connoted differently than intended. The Audit identifies where the Korean language version loses premium signals or brand personality.
The Audit shows which core messages need to be redeveloped. Transcreation puts it into practice, creatively and with cultural precision.
Transcreation
After the Audit, the style guide framework forms the basis for systematic terminology development: a foundation for all future localisation projects.
Terminology Management
While the Brand Consistency Audit reviews brand consistency across markets, the Readiness Audit evaluates your overall communication readiness for market entry: linguistically, culturally, and digitally.
Asia Communication Readiness Audit
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