Wednesday, May 03, 2006

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...

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 loosely 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."

Also 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 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 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."

Chicken-man Frank Perdue's slogan, "It takes a tough man to
make a tender chicken," got terribly mangled in another Spanish
translation. A photo of Perdue 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."

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.

and finally...

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."

By the way, these are all true!

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