Is Transcreation Another Way of Translating? Subtitling Estrella Damm’s Advertising Campaigns into English*

Estrella Damm’s Communication Strategy for National and International Markets

Spain is one of the largest beer producers in Europe but one of the countries with the lowest beer consumption (Statista, 2022b). From 2008 to 2020, the average beer consumption per capita was under 55 litres per person a year (Statista, 2022a) while countries such as Germany or Austria consumed twice as much (Statista, 2022b). In 2020, the Czech Republic consumed 135 litres per person a year, Austria, 100, and Germany, 95. Mediterranean countries are at the bottom of the list. In 2020, Spain’s consumption was 50 litres per person a year, Cyprus, 43, Malta, 39, France, 33, Italy, 31, and Greece, 28 (Statista, 2022b). Nevertheless, beer is still one of the most frequently consumed drinks in Spain (Statista, 2022c).

According to Brand Finance (2021) and its World Brand Finance Beer Ranking, the most valuable beer brands in Spain in 2021 were Estrella Damm (position 24), Mahou (position 35), and San Miguel (position 49). Estrella Damm, which now leads the ranking in Spain, was not in such a good position before 2009 when this traditional brand was losing its luster. This was partly due to advertising campaigns that did not have a unique selling proposition. The company had previously presented a huge variety of campaigns but could not transfer a clear and continuous perspective into their communication actions. In fact, Estrella Damm’s position did not start to improve until it changed its communication strategy in 2009.

That year, their first Mediterranean campaign was launched with a strong strategic communication approach. This enabled the brand to reconnect with young people through social networks. The campaign utilised a remarkably effective transmedia mix (Álvarez-Ruiz & Castro Patiño, 2021, p. 20). As stated by Estrella Damm’s creative director, Oriol Villar, the Mediterranean campaigns are aimed at disseminating the Mediterranean lifestyle precisely because the brand is strong in this geographical area and advertising reinforces its identity. For him, advertising puts a magnifying glass on one part of the brand and amplifies it (Interview, Villar, October 4, 2021).

Even though the brand’s main target audience is the local market, internationalisation is a pillar of Damm’s strategic plan. Since Spain is the second most popular tourist destination for British people, Estrella Damm considers that it is useful to run advertising campaigns in the United Kingdom. There, they use the same campaigns on the Mediterranean lifestyle to be coherent with their communication strategy.

Damm’s Mediterranean campaigns work for local people as they transmit a feeling of pride and belonging. For foreigners, the ads work as they make them feel good by bringing back beautiful memories of their holidays in Spain. However, the role of the campaigns is very different in each country. In Barcelona, Estrella Damm can be found almost everywhere and it is a common beer. In contrast, in the UK or the United States, this brand can only be found in some places, and it is a special beer (Interview, Villar, October 4, 2021).

Transcreation in Advertising Translation

Research on advertising translation has flourished, especially, after the turn of the millennium, and has emphasised the need for cultural, semiotic, and target-user transfer (Adab & Valdés, 2004; Torresi, 2021). The terms translation, adaptation, and transcreation coexist in the literature on advertising translation in several ways, sometimes interchangeably. We understand the first one broadly as any act of linguistic and cultural transfer. In this sense, we consider that both adaptation and transcreation are translation strategies used to carry out linguistic and iconographic transfers to the conventions and social practises of the receiving culture. In the nineties, adaptation was a common term. For example, Smith and Klein-Braley (1997) define adaptation as “the technique which makes the necessary tactical adjustments in terms of addressee needs and expectations, cultural norms, frames of reference” (p. 183). Increasingly, and particularly in the new millennium, transcreation has been employed in the context of advertising translation (Gaballo, 2012). According to Torresi (2021), transcreation is “a type of adaptation that involves copywriting and, possibly, prompting the creation of new visuals for the promotional material, rather than relying on the same verbal and visual structures of the source text” (p. 199). Thus, there is continuity with the sense of adaptation as a translation strategy.

However, Torresi’s definition adds the following specification: “in this approach, the translator is seen as a creative professional with highly developed language skills and an in-depth understanding of social, cultural, legal and promotional conventions currently in place in the target culture” (Torresi, 2021, p. 199). This has specific consequences for translators such as higher specialisation and remuneration and the explicit brief of freedom in translation: “the process of trans-creating an entirely new text to accommodate the expectations of the target group requires more flexible deadlines and higher price” (Torresi, 2021, pp. 12-13).

The current advertising scenario, which combines globalisation and localisation, has fostered this new professional profile of translation. Transcreators have the explicit brief to incorporate semiotic adaptation, drawing from their expertise in content localisation, and “the creative dimension of the translation process, which is particularly necessary in marketing” (Fuentes-Luque & Valdés, 2020, pp. 81-82). When we state that transcreation is a new profile, we mean a new professional profile, especially in the advertising field. This is compatible with the view that creativity, as well as semiotic and cultural adaptation, are integral parts of translation.

The boundaries between the concepts of translation and transcreation have been the focus of a rich discussion in translation studies by specialists in audiovisual translation (Pedersen, 2014; Spinzi & Katan, 2014; Chaume, 2018), advertising translation (Torresi, 2021), and illustrated literature (Oittinen, 2020). It is beyond the scope of this paper to discuss all the theoretical issues involved in the alleged “transcreational turn” of translation studies (Katan, 2016), which include a need to find a new concept of equivalence that embraces new types of relations between original and target texts (Chaume, 2018, p. 84). Scholars generally agree that the ingredients of transcreation are present in translation. For example, Torresi (2021) uses translation in the context of advertising and gives the term its etymological meaning of transfer: “the transfer of a text, concept or promotional purpose across languages, cultures, and markets. This by no means implies that translation is limited to the verbal dimension, nor to texts as seen out of their real-life contexts” (Torresi, 2021, p. 5). Nevertheless, there is also agreement among specialists and scholars that the label transcreation is increasingly used by the translation industry (e.g. Balemans, 2016) and analysed by scholars (Carreira, 2020; Gaballo, 2012) to emphasise its value as an addition to translation (Pedersen, 2014). Even then, following Torresi (2021), translation is a general term and transcreation, a translation strategy (p. 5).

Key Factors Involved in Transcreation

As a translation strategy, transcreation involves four factors: creativity, cocreation, internationalisation, and adaptation. We discuss them in this subsection.

From an advertising perspective, Villar considers that creativity implies problem-solving in different ways (Interview, Villar, October 4, 2021). More specifically, language creativity can involve the “purposeful use of non-standard language [where a specific trope can be replaced] with another creative device that engages the reader [or viewer] with equal intensity” (Torresi, 2021, p. 142). This engagement is all-important and can relate to the emotional dimension of translation: “Transcreation is not only about communicating effectively but also affectively, establishing an emotional connection between the audience/the customer and the message” (Dybiec-Gajer & Oittinen, 2020, p. 3).

Another key factor is cocreation or, at least, the dialogue or negotiation between translators and creative directors. Cocreation can entail suggesting alternative versions to provide creative language (Torresi, 2021, p. 142) or different versions for close-ups to help lip-syncing, for example, of Spanish word vale or Catalan word d’acord, uttered by Dakota Johnson in Estrella’s Vale 2015 commercial (El Periódico, 2015).

The following factors, internationalisation and adaptation, often coexist in transcreation briefs and reveal current tensions between globalisation and localisation. As regards internationalisation, in global advertising campaigns, translation is envisaged from the outset and text is often translated from one into many languages or markets (Pedersen, 2014, p. 65) and transferred from one culture to a different one.

Hence, cultural transfer has been emphasised in research on advertising translation (e.g. Adab & Valdés, 2004). Adaptation is a specific factor of transcreation that “accommodates the conventions of the target language and culture, the canons of literary genres thereof, and the expectations of the target readership/audience” (Torresi, 2021, p. 195). This can involve specific adjustments or completely “re-building the entire promotional text so that it sounds and reads both natural and creative in the target language and culture” (Torresi, 2021, pp. 4-5). This frequently implies adaptation to local legislation that can prompt the creation of new “visuals”, that is, “each visual element of a (promotional) text. Also, the typeset version of a print advertising or promotional text, complete with pictures and any other visual material that accompanies the written text” (Torresi, 2021, p. 200).

According to Chaume (2018), “types of shots can also be manipulated in order to share a domesticated product that, allegedly, satisfies a specific target audience” (p. 96). For example, advertising in the UK does not allow images of people drinking beer while in the water. Therefore, when Estrella Damm commercials are filmed, specific shoots are taken for the English versions (Interview, Villar, October 4, 2021). The specific role of translators in adapting the commercials to target cultural or legal aspects depends on the degree of cocreation and their presence in the workflow, which varies greatly (Carreira, 2020).

In short, “transcreations are all forms of semiotic adaptation and manipulation where some or most - if not all - semiotic layers of the original (audio)visual product are localised” (Chaume, 2018, p. 96). In academic literature, greater emphasis has been put on the visual elements of the text and, arguably, not so much on its aural elements. An exception to this are studies on dubbing or illustrated children’s literature and the importance of rhythm in stories for reading aloud (Oittinen, 2020).

Challenges of Transcreating Aural Elements

Transcreating aural elements such as songs or rhyming texts is common in advertising. Since the corpus of this study comprises sung translation and subtitled songs, both are tackled succinctly.

Low (2016) summarises the challenges of musical translation through the sporting metaphor of the pentathlon and its five components: singability, sense, naturalness, rhythm, and rhyme. Low analyses each of these separately but stresses the flexibility that is required and the relative importance of each individual aspect for an overall effect. Professional practise is pragmatic and defends “tweaks” or small adjustments, especially regarding rhythm (Low, 2016, pp. 100-102), which can also be extrapolated to other pentathlon principles like rhyme. In advertising, flexible, imperfect rhyme schemes might be used in rap music or the translation of musicals (Espasa, in press). If rhyme has to be translated, this needs to be anticipated: “Any strategic decision to use rhyme needs to be made early in the process, so that some rhyming words (the crucial ones) can be found early on” (p. 103).

Subtitling of songs has been tackled by Franzon (2008) and Díaz-Cintas and Remael (2020, pp. 195-200), among others. Subtitled songs “belong to the category of song translations meant to be read rather than sung” (Díaz-Cintas & Remael, 2020, p. 196). Yet, the simultaneous reception of subtitles and music is a relevant factor since “viewers read the subtitles while listening to the music and lyrics at the same time, which may have an impact on the translation, rhythmically speaking” (Díaz-Cintas & Remael, 2020, p. 196). Therefore, all the pentathlon factors mentioned above (singability, sense, naturalness, rhythm, and rhyme) are relevant, even if sense tends to be the subtitler’s main concern.

Díaz-Cintas and Remael (2020) provide criteria for choosing the songs to translate. Usually, thematic or plot relevance is an important criterion. However, songs “suggesting a mood or creating an atmosphere […] must be given special attention” (Díaz-Cintas & Remael, 2020, p. 196) even though they are often left untranslated. As regards formal aspects, they discuss the challenges of deciding whether it is important to preserve the rhythm and the rhyme of song lyrics since subtitles are a supporting translation and would not detract too much attention from the images and soundtrack. Nonetheless, they also report Franzon’s (2008) claim that respecting the prosody of lyrics in subtitling can actually enhance their readability. Low (2016) states that the specific relevance of rhyme in songs should be considered. For Corrius and Espasa (2022), “the decision as to when and how to subtitle songs shows the delicate balance between logocentric and musicocentric approaches” (p. 40) that is, between attention to the verbal or the musical aspects involved.

Data Collection

For our analysis, we worked with the Spanish version and the subtitled English version of 14 commercials (detailed in Table 1) that are part of the Estrella Damm Mediterráneamente campaign. These ads were aired on Spanish television between 2009-2021 and can be found on the internet, where they have been viewed many times. Although we examined the Spanish version as the source text (ST), according to Villar, the ads were recorded in either Spanish or Catalan depending on the director’s language (Interview, Villar, October 4, 2021).

Data Analysis

Following the case study methodology, we used several qualitative techniques, which are commonly employed in translation, to analyse the most relevant content of each ad. We gathered information from the scientific literature and data from official sources. We carried out two semi-structured interviews, the first with Oriol Villar, a creative director with Estrella Damm (October 4, 2021), and the second (February 8, 2022) with Tony Gray, who has been responsible for the translation of Estrella Damm’s Mediterráneamente campaigns (from Spanish into English) since 2015.

For the content analysis we designed an Excel sheet in which we registered information about the commercial, location, slogan, cultural references, music and soundtrack, and languages used in the ad. Then we selected the commercials that contain more text (2015-2021), either spoken or sung in Spanish, where the role of translation is more relevant. Finally, we studied the strategies for translating the following prominent elements of these ads: slogans, cultural references, multilingualism, and songs. We also did a detailed analysis of those commercials in which transcreation of aural elements was involved.

Cultural References and Language in the Mediterráneamente Campaign

As every country has its own language, cultural codes, laws, and norms, it is challenging to devise a global advertising campaign that can be adapted worldwide. Many campaigns have failed because the idea has not connected with the public in the country despite the fact it is properly translated. For Sánchez (2020), the translation of an advertising campaign should work for the ad and the brand (p. 174). Not only should the text be translated, but also its values. In the case of the Mediterráneamente campaign, the meaning of the content is multiplied when the images are put in context. As mentioned above, the campaigns, which repositioned the brand, focus on reinforcing Mediterranean culture and identity. By culture, we refer to “the set of values, traditions, beliefs and attitudes that are shared by the majority of people living in a country or, alternatively, in a local community that is distinguished from the rest of the national society by major traits such as language, religion, or political and legal systems” (Torresi, 2021, p. 34).

In the campaigns at issue, the scenes, values, beliefs, and attitudes transmitted are those associated with some aspects of Mediterranean culture: the landscape, the weather (sunshine), living by the sea, food, music, enjoyment, friendship, and the Mediterranean lifestyle in general. For Amenábar (Estrella Damm, 2015), the director of the Vale campaign, “to live mediterraneanly means going out, meeting people and soaking up music, cinema, theatre, exhibitions…” (para. 4). For the analysis of Mediterranean cultural references, we follow Díaz-Cintas and Remael’s (2020) classification, which distinguishes between (a) real-world cultural references and (b) intertextual cultural references (p. 203). We could say that Mediterráneamente spots contain both real-world and intertextual cultural references, as follows.

Transferring Linguistic and Cultural Elements

Since the beginning of the Mediterráneamente campaign in 2009, the ads have been run in the UK. Still, Estrella Damm’s marketing strategy in the UK has changed over the years between 2009-2021 and has been slightly modified in Spain. The first commercials (from 2009 to 2014) did not have any dialogue or text except for the slogan at the end of the film and the name of the campaign. Only songs in English could be heard, which made internationalisation easier. For example, a version of the ad Formentera (2009) was launched in the UK, primarily on Channel 4 (during the summer) although outdoor marketing, cinema advertising, and sponsorship of Spanish independent films were also used (Joseph, 2012). Notably, the slogan, the only written message in the Spanish version, lo bueno nunca acaba si hay algo que te lo recuerda was translated as “Good times never end if there’s something to remind you of them”. Hence, following Zabalbeascoa and Arias-Badia’s (2021) classification of translation techniques for subtitling (p. 370), we could say that rewording (which affects lexicosemantic features) was used; for instance, lo bueno [good things] was translated as “good times”. Plus, the song Summercat by Billie the Vision & the Dancers was a great success. Villar describes it as a temazo [a great song] that was suggested by a woman working at the advertising agency (Interview, Villar, October 4, 2021).

The following campaign (Estrella Damm, 2010) was very similar but was recorded in Menorca and the story took place in Sant Joan (Saint John) festivities. The song for that ad was Applejack by the Triangles. The slogan A veces lo que buscas está tan cerca que cuesta verlo [sometimes what you are looking for is so close that it is hard to see] was translated as “Sometimes what you are looking for is closer than you think”, is not written on screen but can be heard in the translated version. Again, rewording occurred. The verb “see” was changed to “think”.

In the summer of 2011, another commercial was aired in Spain directed by Isabel Coixet. Unfortunately, it was banned in the UK by the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) because “it was deemed ‘irresponsible’, for showing people running for a dip in the ocean right after drinking some lager” (AdAge, 2011). The ad, set on the Costa Brava (north of Barcelona), was about a man who takes part in a cooking course at the famous restaurant El Bulli of prestigious chef Ferran Adrià. We see images of this man with his friends riding motorbikes, swimming, snorkelling, and dancing on the beach. In the ad, cultural Catalan sites and elements are shown such as the Empúries ruins, the Dalí Museum, and Dalí’s moustache.

In 2015, the commercials became short films and dialogues were included. This was the case of Vale (Estrella Damm, 2015), Las pequeñas cosas (Estrella Damm, 2016), La vida nuestra (Estrella Damm, 2017) and Alex & Julia (Estrella Damm, 2018). In 2019, there was another change in Estrella Damm’s communication strategy to raise awareness about the environmental emergency in the oceans and climate change. The company decided to keep on focusing on the Mediterranean sea but from a sustainable point of view, which resulted in a group of commercials that call for action on the Mediterranean pollution: Act I. Soul (Estrella Damm, 2019), Act II. Lovers (Estrella Damm, 2020) and Act III. Commitment (Estrella Damm, 2021).

The word Mediterráneamente, which appears at the end of all commercials just below the Estrella Damm logo, has not been translated in the English version. For Tony Gray, the Spanish-English translator of Estrella Damm since 2015, “globalisation has homogenised European and global culture, so there is no need to translate some cultural elements that needed to be translated in the past” (Interview, Gray, February 8, 2022). Everybody is supposed to know about the Mediterranean diet, olive oil, good food, and the Mediterranean coast and this is a trend in most of the commercials analysed. Cultural elements such as the traditional Catalan dish suquet (fish and shellfish soup/stew) that appears in The Little Things (Estrella Damm, 2016) has been kept in the English subtitled version. Note, however, that occasionally the translation provides more information about a particular cultural reference. For example, in The Little Things (Estrella Damm, 2016), la mejor gamba roja de aquí [the best red prawn from here] has been translated as “the best Mediterranean prawns”. Whether cultural references have been translated or not, what all commercials in the Mediterraneámente campaigns have in common is the representation of the Mediterranean cultural values, which is perceived by both local and international audiences.

Multilingualism

The Vale commercial (Estrella Damm, 2015) makes use of global identity and local culture by code-switching English with Spanish (in the Spanish version) and English with Catalan (in the Catalan version). As stated above, the Mediterráneamente campaigns play a different role locally and abroad and the use of two languages in the same commercial reinforces this. As Gore (2020) puts it,

In the short film Vale, the presence of multilingualism-or “third language” (L3) as used by Corrius and Zabalbeascoa (2011, p. 114)-is part of the plot and does not seem to be a problem for the local or the British audience. In the Spanish version, when Víctor asks Claudia if she would like a beer, she answers vale and David repeats vale. At this stage, vale has not been translated into the English version because the meaning of this word will be part of a later conversation. Víctor then approaches Rachel and Toni who are cooking. As Rachel only speaks English, most of the dialogue is in English and, consequently, it has not been translated into the target text. Only the sentence uttered in Spanish Víctor, anda, ¿me ayudas a poner la mesa? has been subtitled as “Víctor, come on, can you help me set the table?”. Víctor’s answer ¡Vale! is interesting because Rachel asks “What’s vale? What does it mean? Everybody is always saying vale, vale, vale”. Víctor answers, “Vale is for todo” [Vale is for everything] and Toni clarifies: “It just means ok”. The mix of English and Spanish in this dialogue about the meaning of the word vale is the same in the Spanish and English versions. Table 2 illustrates a similar phenomenon in another scene, in which the characters are all at the table about to start lunch.

Only a few sentences in Spanish have been translated into English. The rest of the sentences in the ST, which are in English, are left untranslated in the TT. When this happens, the foreign language cannot be differentiated from the TT main language. Therefore, language variation becomes invisible to the TT audience (Corrius & Zabalbeascoa, 2011, p. 125).

Yet, this lack of L3 visibility has been compensated for by keeping some sentences in Spanish in the TT. Note, for instance, the scene when they arrive at the port. There is a conversation in the original version in which there is constant code-switching between Spanish and English, which has been transferred in an unchanged way:

A further point needs to be made in this analysis as there is a scene in which multilingualism has a humorous effect in the ST (see Table 3). Víctor (who does not speak English) is walking along the streets in Ibiza while thinking about what he is going to tell Rachel. He is trying to translate into English what he would like to tell her. For the Spanish audience, this scene is very funny as Victor is making Spanish words sound English.

However, keeping the same invented Spanglish L3 in the TT, as in this example, does not necessarily entail that it has the same effect in the target audience, particularly, if they do not know any Spanish.

Multilingualism is also present in The Little Things (Estrella Damm, 2016), but here the third language is represented through the French accent of actor Jean Reno. In this clip, the type of language variation used would be the “dialectal meme” as it denotes “all the connotations associated with an individual or character due to the accent that features in his or her speech” (Hayes, 2021, p. 5). The subtitles provided for the English version do not mark any type of language variation, as is common in subtitling.

Language variation through accent is also present in Alex & Julia (Estrella Damm, 2018), where we can hear a presenter speaking in Spanish with a strong English accent. In this commercial, the dialogues are in Spanish and the lyrics of the songs are all in English. As Díaz-Cintas and Remael (2020) state, “linguistic accents and pronunciation are problematic to render in subtitles” (pp. 194) but “the degree to which language variation can be rendered in subtitles will depend, of course, on the technical constraints, on the guidelines the subtitler has received and on the socio-cultural TT context for which the subtitled production is made” (Díaz-Cintas & Remael, 2020, p. 183).

Something different can be spotted in Our Life (2017): a short film completely recorded in Spanish except for the sentence “arrivederci boys” (a mixture of Italian and English), which was not translated into the TT. In this clip, the protagonist, Anton, moved to Amsterdam but came back to Barcelona to sell his boat. In Barcelona, he is watching a series whose main character is the detective Chad Johnson, who then appears in Anton’s dream to make him realise that he has a nice life, but should learn to live it. The translated English version mixes English and Spanish. The series that Anton is watching and the dream that he has at night can be heard in English while the rest of the dialogues are in Spanish and subtitled in English in the tt. In this case, there is much more language variation in the TT than in the ST.

Transcreating the Aural: Songs, Rhythm, and Rhyme in Mediterráneamente

Songs are a very important component of the Estrella Damm summer campaigns. The first commercial, Formentera (Estrella Damm, 2009), marked the trend for the Mediterráneamente campaign. Accort’s Try Together, 2021) (Interview, Villar, October 4, 2021). In this second case, when we asked Villar whether co-creation of music had occurred, in that the agency gave composers tips about the goal of the songs, Villar agreed, but with the following nuances: “the work and the merit are all theirs. You need a really motivated singer […] and something really cool can come out of it. When you combine these songs with the music, it can be explosive” (Villar, Interview, 2021, own translation).

The Mediterráneamente campaign has two types of commercials, in which songs play different roles: (a) the summer commercials (2009-2018) celebrating the Mediterranean lifestyle, to which songs add a festive mood; and (b) the sustainable commercials (2019-2020) that centred on the need to preserve the Mediterranean, which is a message that is conveyed through the final slogan: “If we love our way of living, shouldn’t we protect what makes it possible?” (Estrella Damm, 2019, 2020).

Commercials broadcast between 2009-2018 included a co-branding component because Estrella Damm promoted musicians and vice versa. Songs that had not been very well-known were (re)discovered and revitalised. The promotion of music is visible in the 2014 slogan “Music is culture”, the scenery of the commercials including live concerts, and even dialogues with specific reference to music festivals, bands, and musicians. This phase closed with the 2018 commercial Alex & Julia, a celebration of the ten first years of the campaign. It includes fragments of all the songs involved in the previous commercials and closes with a new song, The Place to Stay. Songs are both the soundtrack and part of the show as the characters are singers, but the songs are not subtitled keeping with the usual criterion of translating only plot-relevant songs; just intralingual subtitles were provided for Place to Stay song in the English version of the 2018 Alex & Julia commercial.

In 2019, Estrella Damm changed its communication strategy to a more social one, focusing on sustainability but maintaining the Mediterranean aspect at its core, as can be seen in a specific section of the company’s website.¹ The sustainability campaign Another Way of Living, which is also a part of Mediterráneamente, was made up of three commercials: Act I. Soul (Estrella Damm, 2019), Act II. Lovers (Estrella Damm, 2019), and Act III. Commitment (Estrella Damm, 2020). As we will see in the next section, it is only in these commercials that songs are translated.

Act I. Soul (Estrella Damm, 2019)

The commercial consists of a subaquatic dance in which Claire Friesen swims underwater surrounded by big transparent pieces of plastic at the bottom of the sea. The dancer slowly sinks to the bottom, which changes from blue to black, before closing her eyes on the seabed (Figure 1).

The images of the commercial are set against the background of Another Way of Living (Estrella Damm, 2019) sung by the same singer, Maria Rodés, in the three versions - Catalan, Spanish, and English. There are no subtitles. According to Villar, “the lyrics are key, because the music fulfils an emotional and narrative role. […] In Soul¸ it is the sea singing and asking for help, not the drowning woman”. (Villar, Interview, October 4, 2021). Table 4 shows the lyrics in Spanish and English, the language combination used by translator Gray.

When we listen to the song, we can see that there is no strict rhythmic pattern, which may explain the translator’s comments on the ease of this task. However, all assonant rhymes have been preserved. We can also see the importance of the first-person narrative, evoking the Mediterranean according to Villar, but visually personified in the figure of the dancer (Villar, Interview, October 4, 2021). There are some changes of order in the lines, probably due to production changes, but the general atmosphere of the commercial poetically conveys the perils of suffocating the sea. It is the only commercial where there are no images of Estrella Damm beer.

Figure 1

Frame from Act i. Soul

Table 4

Lyrics of Act I. Soul (Estrella Damm, 2019a)

ST	TT
Acto I. Alma Ahora yo Que vi nacer el mundo Que mi latido es tuyo Ahora yo Que abrazo tus recuerdos Y callo tus secretos Siento terror No comprendo Por qué escupes veneno Me dejas sin aliento Me quemas todo el cuerpo Hace un tiempo Que te veo y no te entiendo Debe haber otra forma de vivir	Act I. Soul Now I, Who saw you come to life Who helped you when you cried Now I Whose heart beats in your eyes Who tries to see you smile I’m terrified I don’t get Why you tear up my hair Leave my body in flames And take away my breath It’s been time That you seem to be in the blind There must be another way of living

Act II. Lovers (Estrella Damm, 2019b)

The English version (see Table 5) is consistent with the criteria used in Act I in prioritising a rhyming pattern, for example, in translating Con miedo y sin razón/Y apenas corazón [scared and without reason/and barely with heart] (Figure 2). In its rendering as “sailing in the dark/looking for my heart”, the metaphor sailing/searching is in keeping with the visuals: the ships and boats of several NGOs involved in environmental preservation that are portrayed in the commercial (Figure 2). Activists are shown saving turtles and dolphins, cleaning litter from the seabed, preserving Posidonia, and enjoying themselves and resting with a bottle of beer.

Table 5

Lyrics of Act ii Lovers

ST	TT
Acto II. Amantes Soy yo Con miedo y sin razón Y apenas corazón Bajo la piel Soy yo Y te pido perdón Y, sabes, lo peor He estado bien Mientras tú por dentro vas muriendo Te arrojan hierro ardiendo Te ahogas por momentos Hace un tiempo Que me veo y no me entiendo Me escucho y no me creo Debe haber otra forma de vivir	Act II. Lovers It’s me sailing in the dark looking for my heart Under your skin It’s me And I need to apologize You know what makes me sad I was fine While you are melting down inside They throw you burning iron You drown in the fight It’s been time that I wake up at night shaking like a child There must be another way of living

Figure 2

Frame from Act II. Lovers

Act III. Commitment (Estrella Damm, 2020)

The series of Another Way of Living commercials end with the third stanza of the song in the commercial Act iii. Commitment. There are sung versions in Catalan and Spanish. In the English commercial, subtitles in English are available while the song is sung in Spanish.

The images show groups of contemporary dancers and eco-activists collecting plastic from the sea and protecting endangered birds. Figure 3 portrays a connection between humans and nature with a mixture of poeticism and activism: action and angry gestures from ecowarriors. There is an interplay of visuals and lyrics: “thousands like you”, the appeal to the earth or nature as “mother”, and the action (“gesture”) that “suddenly stops time” (see Table 6).

The graphic design of the slogans in all versions of the commercials is the same in the three languages. The only untranslated element in the English version is the slogan Mediterráneamente, which appears in Spanish.

Figure 3

Frame from Act III. Commitment

Table 6

Lyrics of Act III. Commitment

ST	TT
Act III. Compromiso Y ahora tú y miles como tú hablando de un lugar donde empezar. Y ahora aquí tu voz vuelve a existir y aquella sensación de ser feliz. Y un gesto de golpe para el tiempo junta ese dolor y lo aleja con el viento. Madre aquí me tienes en tu inmensidad como una hija más... Debe haber otra forma de vivir. Debe haber otra forma de vivir.	Acto III. Commitment And now you and thousands like you talking about a place where to begin. And now here your voice exists again and that feeling of being happy. And a gesture suddenly stops time it unites the pain and carries it off in the wind. Mother here I am in your immensity like just another child... There must be another way of living. There must be another way of living.