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Translation Trouble
- 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?"
- Coors put its slogan, "Turn It Loose," into
Spanish.........where it was read as "Suffer From Diarrhea".
- Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the
following in an American campaign...... "Nothing sucks like
an Electrolux".
- Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron, into
Germany.......only to find out that "mist" is slang for
manure.
- 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.
- Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called
Cu....... the name of a notorious porno magazine.
- 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)
- Pepsi's "Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation"..........
translated into"Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the
Grave" in Chinese.
- 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 "kokou kole", translating into........ "happiness
in the mouth".
- 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".
- 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!"
- 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.
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