Sensitivity Toward Chickens

A lot of people have heard the story about the Chevy Nova having a terrible time selling cars in Spain because “no va” is translated as “doesn’t go”.  Here are some of my other favorites (taken from the article linked below):

• In the mid-1960s, Pepsi’s slogan “Come Alive with the Pepsi Generation” failed to energize Taiwan, as the translation read “Pepsi Brings Your Relatives Back From the Dead”.

• Coors’ campaign “Turn it Loose” went flat in Spain, urging drinkers to “Get Diarrhea”.

• Had Colgate consulted such a firm before launching their toothpaste called Cue in France, customers might have been spared the embarrassment of being presented with a hardcore pornographic magazine when they asked for the product. Turns out the magazine, which shared the name, had been around for years.

• The Scandinavian company Electrolux caused some snickering when its slogan – “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux” – began appearing in marketing literature.

• Gerber had some trouble many years ago when it began marketing its baby food in Africa. The company used the same packaging it did in the US and Europe: a picture of a happy Caucasian baby on the label. It was only later that it discovered that because a large proportion of the population was illiterate, most companies only put pictures of the contents on the label.

• Few had it worse than poultry baron Frank Perdue, though, whose billboards in Spain mistranslated his well-known slogan “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken” to read “It takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate”.

These were taken from this article: http://venturebeat.com/2009/07/20/expanding-abroad-avoid-translation-travesties/

Category: Gallery, Musings