Tobar Group Case Study

Project Brief

Opening their doors over 40 years ago with just thirty lines of products – eight of which they still sell today – the Tobar Group is now one of the largest providers of curios in the UK. A multi-brand organisation, they distribute their unique and fun products across Europe through Tobar and Tobar France, selling directly online through their Stocking Fillers site. And you’ll find their flagship Hawkin’s Bazaar stores on some of Britain’s favourite high-streets.

The Tobar Group know how to talk toys: every phrase, idiom, and expression in their industry. But when the Norwich-based group needed to translate their entire catalogue from English to French, they knew it would be far from child’s play.

What our clients say

With Integro’s help, we’re able to target overseas markets with engaging direct emails, and have increased online traffic in France thanks to our fully-translated website.

We knew we’d face challenges when we translated our extensive catalogue from English to French. Toy descriptions and types are as unique as the country they come from, so describing them in another language posed potential problems. Integro’s attention to detail, along with their careful, considered approach to the brief made the process simple. Before they even began to translate our words, they invested time in researching our sector. They studied our products, got a sound understanding of our phrases and terminology, and then compared them to similar products or idioms used by native French speakers.

Throughout the project, Integro’s team of skilled linguists kept us up-to-date and ran frequent Q&A sessions to retain our tone of voice and keep our messaging consistent.

Their team not only translated all of our product names which had counterparts in other languages, but they adapted words and phrases for our more unusual items with no direct equivalent, finding new names for our products that had the same impact overseas.

They didn’t stop there. As part of their process, and to ensure ongoing consistency, they’ve created a dedicated Tobar database. This sophisticated translation software means nothing is ever lost in translation, and no translation is ever lost. And as new projects are completed, our database of terms and translations grows, allowing a faster, and more accurate translation for all of our future products.