Encouraging People to Speak Up

The ‘Dob in a Dealer’ campaign encourages people to identify and report any suspicious, drug-related activity to help reduce drug harm in their local community. Some of the creative assets for this campaign relied on using slang words that were more likely to resonate with target audiences.

Slang words and other colloquialisms can be difficult to translate as they require finding an equivalent term in the target language. There are times when equivalent terms do not exist at all, and this requires a different approach to effectively convey the intended meaning.

One of the phrases that we paid particular attention to was ‘plug’. In this context, ‘plug’ was a slang term referring to a drug dealer. In addition, there were several other key texts that were heavily reliant on context as they were intended to be perceived as a form of encoded communication.

We worked with the Crime Stoppers Victoria team and our translators to identify any ambiguities and address them accordingly. By maintaining close contact with key stakeholders, we were able to seek clarification on intended meaning to ensure that the final translation accurately conveyed the nuance and meaning of the Crime Stoppers Victoria campaign assets.