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Loading ...Sometimes advertising campaigns backfire. Here are a few true examples.
1. Coors translated it’s slogan “Turn it loose” into Spanish, where it was read as “Suffer from diarrhea.”
2. Clairol introduced the “Mist Stick” curling iron into Germany, where they later found out that ‘mist’ is the German equivalent of shit.
3. An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market to coincide with the Pope’s visit. But instead of “I saw the Pope” (el Papa), the shirts read (la Papa) “I saw the potato”.
4. Pepsi’s slogan “Come alive with the Pepsi Generation” translated into Chinese as “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the dead”.
5. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the USA, with the adorable Caucasian baby on the label. They later learned that in Africa, companies usually put pictures of the contents on the label, as most people can’t read.
6. 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.”
7. The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as “Ke-kou-ke-la”, meaning “Bite the wax tadpole” or, depending on the dialect, “Female horse stuffed with wax.” Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent “ko-kou-ko-le” which translates nicely into “Happiness in the mouth”.
8. 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 translator thought that the word ‘embarrass’ was meant as ‘embarazar’ (to impregnate), so the ad read “It won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant”.
