Cracking an international market is a goal of most growing corporations. It shouldn't be that hard, yet even the big multi-nationals run into trouble because of language and cultural differences. For example...
1. Coors Beer put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from
diarrohea."
2. Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks
like an Electrolux."
3. 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."
4. When Gerber started selling baby food in
Africa, they used the same packaging as in the U.S., with the beautiful Caucasian 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.
5. Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.
6. 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).
7. Pepsi's "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi brings your
ancestors back from the grave", in Chinese.
8. 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."
9. 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 phonetic equivalent "ko-kou-ko-le", translating into "happiness in the mouth."
10. When Parker Pen marketed 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."
11. Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."
12.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.
13. Ford had a similar problem in Brazil when the Pinto flopped. The company found out that Pinto was Brazilian slang for "tiny male genitals". Ford pried all the nameplates off and substituted Corcel, which means horse.
14. Japan's second-largest tourist agency was mystified when it entered English-speaking markets and began receiving requests for unusual sex tours. Upon finding out why, the owners of Kinki Nippon Tourist Company changed its name.
15. Hunt-Wesson introduced its Big John products in French Canada as Gros Jos before finding out that the phrase, in slang, means "big breasts." In this case, however, the name problem did not have a noticeable effect on sales.
16. In an effort to boost orange juice sales in predominantly continental breakfast eating England, a campaign was devised to extoll the drink's eye-opening, pick-me-up qualities. Hence, the slogan, "Orange juice. It gets your pecker up."
