International Marketing Flops - Actual Accounts

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 "Whensmoking 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's 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."

ROFLMAO Arvon! :D I haven't laughed this much in a long time :D [img]smile.gif[/img]

[img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] [img]graemlins/thumbsup.gif[/img] Good job [img]smile.gif[/img]

<font color=skyblue>Very informative!
My major in College is International Business and Marketing, and I am looking to be a translation specialist. Yet, I will actually do my homework and know the slang of a nation before having something stupid posted all over town!
You wonder how those people got through college! </font>

lol... [img]graemlins/laugh3.gif[/img]

the spanish ones are priceless!!!

i can add one more. when mitsubishi tried to commercialize the pajero pick up truck in argentina, they had to change the name after a few months of no sales whatsoever. they finally realised why males werent buying it when they were explained that pajero means in argentine slang "jerk off"

And yet another one (with slightly more grisly undertones):

When the Gerber baby food company began marketing its products in Africa, the managers couldn't figure out why it wasn't selling, until someone from Africa explained to them that because a majority of the continent was illiterate, all products had a picture of the contents of the package on them.

Consider what the picture is on a bottle of Gerber baby food. [img]graemlins/uhoh1.gif[/img]

Cheers,

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Larry_OHF:
<font color=skyblue>Very informative!
My major in College is International Business and Marketing, and I am looking to be a translation specialist. Yet, I will actually do my homework and know the slang of a nation before having something stupid posted all over town!
You wonder how those people got through college! </font><hr></blockquote>

Its because the Business world is overloading each individual with tasking that there isn't time to do research on local idioms and slang..or so it has been my impression in other fields of endeavor.

<font color=skyblue>Oh! I got one to add for the Brits.

Great Britain was marketing thier new line of vacuum cleaners, and the slogan was:
The(blah, blah) vacuum cleaner. It really SUX!!!

Now...why would that not work over here? :D </font>