Below are fine examples of what happens when marketing translations fail
to reach a foreign country in an understandable way.
Coors put its
slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from
diarrhea."
Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron, into
German only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many people had
use for the "manure stick".
Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux
used the following in an American campaign: Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.
The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem-Feeling Free", was
translated into the Japanese market as "When smoking Salem, you will feel so
refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty."
When Gerber
started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US,
with the beautiful baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa,
companies routinely put pictures on the label of what's inside, since most
people can't read English.
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).
In
Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into "Schweppes
Toilet Water."
Pepsi's "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" translated
into "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave," in Chinese.
When
Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say "It
won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." However, the company mistakenly
thought the spanish word "embarazar" meant embarrass. Instead the ads said that
"It wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."
The name Coca-Cola
in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did
not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase
means "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the
dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close
phonetic equivalent, "ko-kou-ko-le," which can be loosely translated as
"happiness in the mouth."
Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken
slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."
When
General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South America, it was apparently
unaware that "no va" means "it won't go." After the company figured out why it
wasn't selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets to the
Caribe.
Colgate introduced a toothpaste in
France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.
