THE PERILS OF GLOBAL TRADE
Cracking an international market is a goal of many growing corporations. It shouldn't be that hard, yet even big multi-national companies run into trouble because of language and cultural differences.
Click here to find out more about advertising bloopers!
Home
Chrysler Corp. built a compact Plymouth back a few years ago, which they named the "Volare", presumably "to fly" in Italian, as that was a popular song at the time. Someone in the body styling division decided, without consultation apparently, that an accent mark looked good on the "e". With that change, in Spanish it COULD mean "I will fly", but it could as well be translated as "I will explode".
More Bloopers
In Italy, a compaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into Schweppes Toilet Water!
Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American ad campaign: Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.
When Braniff Airlines translated a slogan touting its upholstery, "Fly in Leather", it came out in Spanish as "Fly Naked."
Coors put its slogan ,"Turn it loose", into Spanish - where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhea!"
When Gerber first started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as here in the USA -- with the cute baby on the label. Later they found out that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the label of what is inside since most people cannot read!
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 roughly translated as "happiness in the mouth."
In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come Alive with the Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead."
In Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."
The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem - Feeling Free", got translated in the Japanese market into "When smoking Salem, you feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty."
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.
Ford had a problem in Brazil when the Pinto flopped. The company found out that Pinto was Brazilian slang for "tiny male genitals." Ford pried the nameplates off and substituted Corcel, which means "horse."
When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarass you." However, the company mistakenly thought the spanish word embarazar meant "embarass." Instead, the ads said that "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant!"
Chicken-man Frank Purdue's slogan, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken," got terribly mangled in a Spanish translation. A photo of Purdue with one of his birds appeared on billboards all over Mexico with a caption that explained "It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused."
