13 Unfortunate Translations That Harmed Brand Reputations
It is important for companies to do adequate preparation and research before introducing a product into the international marketplace. How easily even "experts" can sometimes fall victim when their in-house marketing department is not fully aware of the local culture. Sometimes hiring a professional marketeer in the country is probably the best option. Otherwise, slogal translations might end up being a total fiasco!13. 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." 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."
12. Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing Sucks like an Electrolux."
11. 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."
10. Coors put its slogan, "Turn It Loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer From Diarrhea."
9. Pepsi's "Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the Grave" in Chinese.
8. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the smiling baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the labels of what's inside, since many people can't read.
7. Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.
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."
5. When American Airlines wanted to advertise its new leather first class seats in the Mexican market, it translated its "Fly In Leather" campaign literally, which meant "Fly Naked" (vuela en cuero.) in Spanish.
4. 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).
3. The Dairy Association's huge success with the campaign "Got Milk?" prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish translation read "Are You Lactating?"
2. General Motors had a very famous fiasco in trying to market the Nova car in Central and South America. "No va" in Spanish means, "It Doesn't Go".
1. The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Kekoukela", 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 "kokoukole", translating into "Happiness in the Mouth."
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38 thoughts:
That's very funny. I used to work in a language agency where we found stuff like that every day. At least it got our days go smoothly.
Great blog. I have been reading it for some months now and I just love it.
Cheers
Don't forget the time that Sav-On drugstore changed the name of all its stores to "osco," which means disgusting in Spanish. So they promptly changed back. I can't imagine what they stupid and ignorant mistake must have cost them!
Saludos!
Here's a good one: According to Wikipedia, Coca Cola's Dasani water was advertised in England as semen.
Very funny post.
I like your blog. Keep em coming.
Hahaha those are awesome, nice for a good laugh. It's hard to think that these companies don't get a second (or third or forth) opinion/translation so they KNOW what it's being translated into. Oh well, their loss I guess.
Lol. Great post. That just goes to prove Shakespeare wrong when he sais, "What's in a name? A rose by any other name would small as sweet".
Numero dix my favorite! LOL did that translate okay?
PS I Love Your Blog!
If I ever come up with a product I'll have to have a translation service check the name in every language. You would think a big corporation would do a little homework first, he he he:)
Super fun blog mate keep the good work!
Here's another one: "Osram" (www.osram.com) Lamps and lighting systems company - in Polish meaning "to take a shit" ;P
great blog!
really funny
There is more of those in Poland where I come from. I can think of two right now. I used to work in the company called Fart-Pol :) Fart in Polish means "to be lucky". There is a restaurant in Polish most beautiful city - Krakow called "Boner", which is the last name of its owner from 2 centuries ago...
No Go! No Go!
Another funny post!
I'm happy to add another, from Canada of all places! GM Canada had to quickly change the name of their new Buick from Lacrosse to Allure when it was discovered that "Lacrosse" is a French-Canadian slang term for masturbation.
Pajero, a jeep-like car from Toyota or Nissan, means "to wank" in Spanish.
This is a really funny post. Since I belong to the minority of Swedish speaking people in Finland, I've seen a lot of funny translations from Finnish to Swedish. Sometimes I think companies use Babelfish and translate automatically just to make us the Swedish speaking part of the population happy. Well, they could make us happy by translating correctly instead of making us happy by having us laughing at them.
I think you will like this picture.
http://img461.imageshack.us/img461/9336/rajib8.png
Heh.. those are funny. It's hard enough for me to make myself understood in ENGLISH, I don't think I could pass this test either. ;)
The journey from source language to target language can be quite an adventure.
Thanks for sharing these!
Keep creating...it freaks people out,
Mike
In Dutch Flickr (spelled like flikker) is either a slang name for a gay or a rough way to say 'buzz off' (flikker op!)
Right now there's a commercial on Dutch television from a local business-goods postorder company (www.overtoom.nl).
It's about a young employee who is sent out to find all kind of non-existing nonsense articles. One of them is something called a 'poeremetator' which sounds very much like nothing.
But the local gay scene pointed out that this is an actual existing thing, a popular pleasure device for gay sex.
The company seems to not really care because they even made a site (with a flash game) about the word.
www.poeremetator.nl
And next time you can search through snopes.com and see which of these are actually true before spreading them any further. According to them, the stories about Chevy Nova and Coca Cola's Waxed Tadpole are urban legends.
AMC corporation marketed its Matador model in Puerto Rico even though its name in Spanish means "Killer", not an auspicious name for a family car.
#2 is simply not true. It's an urban legend that's been told time again in different versions. The Nova actually sold quite well in Mexico and Venezuela.
Honda originally intended to name the car Fitta, but did not take a liking to the word's meaning in some languages - in Swedish and Norwegian, "fitta" or "fitte" is a rather crude slang term for female genitalia - resulting in a last-minute change.
Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Honda_Fit
PS: I remember some early commercials here in Norway for that car, certainly gave me a laugh! :D
Most of these are urban legends. Go to snopes.com and search for them.
For something called the "Thinking Blog," you're not thinking very critically.
If you like these kinds of things, definitely check out:
http://www.engrish.com/
Some of those businesses really do use Bablefish to come up with the translations ;-)
The "Thinking Blog" is written with the intention to provoke thought. Yes, some of these are legends (and are included for fun) but if everything was laid out then there wouldn't be much for you to think about, right?
Hmmm... just a funny one from Bosnia-Herzegovina, a local detergents company produces a dishwashing detergent named (label is in english): "Super Clean Ass!", the intention was obviously to have the product named "Super Clean, Ace". The other good one from Bosnia is a local Nutella like products called "Barpy" :)
I wish we had a good list of which were urban legend and which were true (or based in truth).
http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/misxlate.asp
Pajero, a jeep-like car from Toyota or Nissan, is a Spanish slang term for a person who masturbates too much.
most of these are urban legend. do your homework before you post stuff lifted wholehog from other sites.
http://spanish.about.com/cs/culture/a/chevy_nova.htm
How about Colgate, pronounced
Colga te in Spanish -- which means "Hang yourself"
about #7 : there's no such thing as a "cue" magazine in France. The fun part was that "cue" sounds exactly like "ass" (cul) in french. Thus you get the idea that cleaning our teeth with an "ass" toothpaste ain't the best advertising campaign :-)
Very funny. Saw a sign in an "international market" here recently for "Reb Bull." Is that how you say "Red Bull" in the South?
Katherine in Atlanta
Just about the Coca-Cola translation. You did get it right by saying it's called kekou kele but that is what it is called now. It is not called kokou kole and I doubt it ever has been. Not sure where you came up with that one.
Kiri is a kind of cheese produced in New Zealand.In Farsi (Persian) language it means "Like a penis", colloquially meaning being of low quality.
http://www.snopes.com/business/misxlate/nova.asp
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