Attila Hildmann goes international

This study examines website localization practices against the background of a rising awareness of food culture and celebrity chef branding in a digitalized and globalized world. As part of a structured media campaign set up in 2014, the localization of Attila Hildmann’s official website substantially contributed to launching the German vegan chef’s brand in the United States, along with the promotion of his two translated cookbooks and frequent appearances in arranged US TV and radio shows. The two language versions of the official website of German vegan food celebrity Attila Hildmann are compared with respect to their form and content. The objective of the study is to determine to what extent and in which way the German website along with the persona-based culinary brand Attila Hildmann is globalized and localized into English to accommodate for the needs of an American target audience. More specifically, we want to investigate which website content has been copied without any change, and which content has been literally translated, adapted to the target locale (i.e. transcreated by adding or omitting elements), or completely recreated. Focusing on the front-end elements of both website versions, we adopt both a macro level and a micro level approach to assess the degree of localization. Eleven parameters encompassing 28 features are analyzed across selected website sections that we assume to be especially sensitive to culturally specific information and localization strategies. The analysis reveals that a hybrid strategy of globalization and localization has been employed, i.e. the website is partially localized for a US target audience.