[1942] in Humor
HUMOR CLASSIC: Ad Campaigns Around the World
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (abennett@MIT.EDU)
Mon Mar 10 12:32:00 1997
From: <abennett@MIT.EDU>
To: humor@MIT.EDU
Date: Mon, 10 Mar 1997 12:25:40 EST
Date: Sun, 9 Mar 1997 23:55:03 -0800
From: Connie Kleinjans <connie@interserve.com>
From: Paul Farley <72253.3153@CompuServe.COM>
From: Laine Tammer, INTERNET:lainet@verilink.com
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...
Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an
American ad campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."
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'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.
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