It's always good to check into the meaning
of your slogans and brands before you start selling in foreign
countries, as these companies learned a bit too late...
1. 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. Coors put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it was
read as
"Suffer from diarrhea".
3. Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in
an
American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux".
4. 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".
5. 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 label of
what's inside,
since many people can't read.
6. Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of
a
notorious porno magazine.
7. 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).
10. 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".
11. 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".
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".
 
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