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Lost In Translation

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...

When Braniff 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."

Chicken magnate Frank Perdue's line, "It takes a tough man to make a tender
chicken," sounds much more interesting in Spanish: "It takes a sexually
stimulated man to make a chicken affectionate."

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 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.

When Pepsi started marketing its products in China a few years back, they
translated their slogan, "Pepsi Brings You Back to Life" pretty literally.
The slogan in Chinese really meant, "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from
the Grave."

When Coca-Cola first shipped to China, they named the product something that
when pronounced sounded like "Coca-Cola." The only problem was that the
characters used meant "Bite the wax tadpole." They later changed to a set
of characters that mean "Happiness in the mouth."

A hair products company, 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 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's inside since most people can't read.

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 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."

An American t-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the spanish market
which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of the desired "I Saw the Pope"
in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed "I Saw the Potato."

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.

Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a
notorious porno mag.

In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into
Schweppes Toilet Water.

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.

Submitted By: Anonymous...