1. Coors put its slogan "Turn it loose" into Spanish, where it was
read as "Suffer from diarrhea."
2. Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in
an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."
3. Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick", a curling iron, into German
only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many
people had use for the "manure stick."
4. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the
same packaging as in the US, with the beautiful caucasian baby on
the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely
put pictures on the label of what's inside, since most people
can't read.
5. Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of
a notorious porno magazine.
6. 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).
7. Pepsi's "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" translated into
"Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave" in Chinese.
8. 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."
9. The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Ke-kou-ke-la",
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 "ko-kou-ko-le", translating into
"happiness in the mouth."
10. When Parker Pens 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 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."
11. The American Dairy Association's huge success with the campaign
"Got Milk?" prompted them to expand their advertising to Mexico.
It was soon brought to their attention that the Spanish
translation read "Are you lactating?"
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