How do you recommend a brand should manage branding your app name when localizing internationally?

Saamer Mansoor
2 replies
I would love to learn from the community how have you named your app in other languages, what worked and what didn't? I created a free, no-ads iPhone app for the deaf called "BeAware", which contains a toolkit of essential features that apps generally charge $50/yr for. I am curious to learn what has helped you all/your companies to grow internationally because I am not sure if I should change/translate the name of the app for each language. In the App Store, in order to show different screenshots by language, you have to localize the descriptions as well. You have the option to localize the name, keywords and subtitle as well. Currently, if you download the BeAware app from the App Store, my app works in >20 languages if the user changes their phone settings. I have localized the app name, description and screenshots for only Spanish and French, so I'm debating whether I should do it for ALL the languages and what I should do specifically for the name of the app in those languages, especially for the launch date of May 2nd. The PH upcoming post: https://www.producthunt.com/post... The PH upcoming page: https://www.producthunt.com/upco... Our website: https://deafassistant.com

Replies

Saamer Mansoor
The challenging part is that we only have 30 characters -,-. Someone I asked also recommended the following, that I might be leaning towards: English: “BeAware The Deaf Assistant” French: “BeAware L’assistant pour sourds” even though BeAware translates to ÊtreConscient. But still would love to hear any experiences/ideas you all may have
Guillaume Mathieu
@saamerm I think the recommendation you just shared is the right way to go. Because you would have very hard time managing branding per each market. Of course when you want to do some distinctive positionning on a key market, or simple when the existing branding can not work in a market (offensive, ...) it may need to be changed, but except for that you'd rather keep the app name across your markets, and adapt the descriptions and screenshots only.