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 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." Elsewhere, the slogan was
translated into, "It takes a virile man to make a chicken
pregnant."
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.
In an effort to boost orange juice sales in predominantly
continental breakfast eating England, a campaign was devised to
extoll the drink's eye-opening, pick-me-up qualities. Hence the
slogan, "Orange juice. It gets your pecker up."
Matsushita Electric is promoting a new Japanese PC targeted at
the Internet. Panasonic has developed a complete Japanese Web
browser, and to make the system "user-friendly", licensed the
cartoon character "Woody Woodpecker" as the "Internet guide."
Panasonic eventually planned on a world version of the product.
A huge marketing campaign was to have introduced the product
in Japan last week. The day before the ads were to be released,
Panasonic suddenly pulled back and delayed the product launch
indefinately.
The reason: The ads featured the slogan "Touch Woody - The
Internet Pecker." An American staff member at the internal product
launch explained to the stunned and embarrassed Japanese what
"touch woody" and "pecker" meant in American slang.
The following correction was taken from The Daily Californian
newspaper:
Retraction: The "Greek Special" is a huge 18 inch pizza
and not a huge 18 inch penis, as described in an add.
Blondie's Pizza would like to apologize for any confusion
Friday's ad may have caused.