Transcreating with Confidence: Strategic Thinking for Creative Work

Transcreation workshop with Claudia Benetello aimed at marketing and advertising translators

Date: Tuesday, 12 May 2026

Time: 5.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m.

Place: University College London, Gower Street, WC1E 6BT, Room: TBC. Nearest tube stations: Euston Square (Circle, Metropolitan, Hammersmith & City), Warren Street (Northern, Victoria), Russell Square (Piccadilly)

Please meet by the Malet Place gate to UCL (opposite Waterstones) at 4.45 p.m. where our LRG colleague and UCL staff member Daniela Ford will take us onto the campus.

Cost: LRG members – £55.00; non-LRG members – £65.00. Please note that the cut-off time for ticket refunds is 5.00 p.m. on Tuesday 5 May. The LRG will refund the ticket price minus any Eventbrite fees.

For our May event, the LRG welcomes Claudia Benetello from Milan, who will do a transcreation workshop aimed at marketing and advertising translators working from English, French, Spanish, German and/or Italian. While the hands-on practice uses these source languages, the methodology itself is language-agnostic and the principles apply to any language pair.

Transcreation is often framed as a creative, instinctive process, but relying on “flair” alone leaves a critical gap. When working with marketing and advertising copy, the brief’s persuasive objectives take precedence over source-text fidelity. So how do you establish what best serves the brief?

This workshop positions transcreation as a hybrid practice between translation and copywriting, where strategy is as fundamental as creativity. You’ll learn a structured 9-step workflow that formalises best practices and makes transcreation systematic by:

• exploring viable creative routes
• weighing trade-offs
• making deliberate choices you can defend to clients

The result? Work grounded in strategic thinking and decision-making rather than just inspiration. You’ll see this approach in action during the hands-on practice, where you’ll transcreate source texts available in English, French, Spanish, German, or Italian into any target language(s).

About the instructor

Claudia Benetello has crafted advertisements for world-famous brands through Italian origination or English/German to Italian transcreation. A speaker on transcreation since 2012, she has given workshops internationally, authored academic publications, and independently released the Dropinka Deck for Transcreation, a physical tool that systematises transcreation methodology. She was also an expert panellist for the ITI’s Transcreation Code of Practice project led by Dr Mavis Ho.

An Italian communications all-rounder, she has co-translated U2’s autobiography, interpreted for Noel Gallagher and interviewed Simple Minds across a 20-year freelance career. She is a member of the Professional Copywriters’ Network, the Art Directors Club Italiano (ADCI), the Associazione Italiana Traduttori e Interpreti (AITI) and the Italian Ordine dei Giornalisti.