International mistakes to avoid |
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- Coors put it slogan, "Turn it loose", into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhea".
- Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux"
- Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick", a curling iron into Germany only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the "manure stick".
- When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the beautiful Caucasian baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictured on the label of what's inside, since most people can't read.
- Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of Notorious "porno" magazine.
- An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of "I saw the Pope" (el Papa), the shirts read "I saw the potato" (la Papa).
- Pepsi's "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi brings you ancestors back from the grave", in Chinese.
- Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "it takes a strong man to make a tender chicken" was translated into Spanish as "it takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate".
- The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Ke-kou-ke-la", meaning "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 400,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent "ko-kou-ko-le", translating into "happiness in the mouth".
- When Parker Pen marked a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, "it won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you". Instead, the company thought that the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.")
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