Italian UNI standard 11591:2015, according to which I’m certified, defines transcreation as “adaptation of texts for advertising”.

In other words: taking a concept in one language and completely recreating it in another, so as to fully preserve the effectiveness of the original message.

This requires a thorough acquaintance with the source language: it is indeed necessary to understand why the original message works in order to succeed in conveying it in the target language.

Competence and cultural awareness take care of the rest.

The objective of transcreation is not to say exactly the same thing in another language: with many texts this would not even be possible.

The aim is rather to achieve the same effect in all languages, something that a translation alone is not always capable of doing.