 Posted here: November 20, 2000 (Thanks, Tim.)  When GM tried to market the Chevy Nova in Central and South America, it was a fiasco. "No va" in Spanish means, of course, "it doesn't go". Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux." Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine. When American Airlines wanted to advertise its new leather first class seats in the Mexican market, it translated its "Fly In Leather" campaign literally, which meant "Fly Naked" (vuela en cuero) in Spanish!Posted here: May 31, 1999 The Dairy Association's huge success with the campaign "Got Milk?" prompted them to expand advertising into Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention that the Spanish translation read "Are you lactating?" Coors translated its slogan "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it became "Suffer from diarrhea." Clairol introduced the "Mist stick," a curling iron, into Germany only to find that "mist" in German 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 U.S., with the smiling baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the label of what's inside, since many people can't read. 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). When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to read, "It won't leak in your pcket and embarrass you." The flaw in the copy was to use the word "embarazar" to mean embarrass, but instead, the ad became: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant." Pepsi's "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" translated in Chinese into "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave." 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 40,000 characters to find a proper phonetic equivalent and came up with "ko-kou-ko-le," which translates into "happiness in the mouth." 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 way back home. |