1. Coors put its slogan, “Turn it loose,” into Spanish, where it was
read as “Suffer from diarrhea.”
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 “shit 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.”
6. An American funny T shirts 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).
lol
One web site owner decided to create his own negative newspaper marketing campaign on the principle that people prefer bad news:
On the 5th April a new text reminder service http://www.binreminded.com decided to mailshot parts of Henley having identified it as the richest county in England.
One local resident in St Andrew’s Road in Henley already angry after a winter of refuse discontent and fears of stealth taxes on collection services became angrier because the hand-delivered mailshot contained the word “BIN”. Also one of the men hand-delivering the mailshots was already involved in a previous bin-debacle when wheelie bins were mis-delivered in Oxfordshire when the van driver couldn’t map-read. He was unavailable to comment.
The binreminded web site owner responded “I guess local knowledge is important when marketing a new service or product. We would consider rebranding the product if there is enough demand in Henley. Also next time we’ll make sure the mailshot delivery people are able to map read”.