Famous Marketing Screw Ups
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 whats inside, since most people cant 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 Popes visit. Instead of I saw the Pope (el papa), the shirts read I saw the potato (la papa).
7. Pepsis Come alive with the Pepsi Generation translated into Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave, in Chinese.
8. Frank Perdues 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 Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, it wont 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 wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.