Bad Advertising Translations

• 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?"
  
• Microsoft's Windows '95 ad slogan, as translated into Japanese: "If you don't know where you want to go, we'll make sure you get taken."
• Coors put its slogan, "Turn It Loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer From Diarrhea."
• When Braniff translated a slogan touting its upholstery, "Fly in Leather," it came out in Spanish as "Fly Naked."
• Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."
• When Vicks first introduce its cough drops on the German market, they were chagrined to learn that the German pronunciation of "v" is "f," which in German is the guttural equivalent of "sexual penetration."
• Not to be outdone, Puffs tissues tried later to introduce its product, only to learn that "Puff" in German is a colloquial term for a whorehouse.
• The Chevy Nova never sold well in Spanish speaking countries. "No Va" means "It Does Not Go" in Spanish.
• Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron, in to Germany only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the "Manure Stick."
• 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 labels of what's inside, since many people can't read.
• Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious pornographic magazine.
• 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).
• Pepsi's "Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation" translated into "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the Grave" in Chinese.
• The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Kekoukela", 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 "kokou kole", translating into "happiness in the mouth."
• Coca-Cola also had trouble in other markets. A few years ago, the jingle "Have a Coke and a Smile" was translated into French. Although the translation was technically correct, words aren't always heard clearly when they're sung, and the song sounded like "Have a Coke and a Mouse."
• 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."
• 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." 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"
• When American Airlines wanted to advertise its new leather first class seats in the Mexican market, it translated its "Fly In Leather" campaign literally, which meant "Fly Naked" (vuela en cuero) in Spanish.
• KFC's "finger lickin' good" slogan was mistranslated in china as "eat your fingers off"
• The Ford Pinto flopped when it was launched in Brazil where "pinto" is slang for small genitals
• Ford also experienced problems in Mexico, where its Caliente wasn't selling. The company eventually discovered that "caliente" is Mexican slang for "prostitute."
• Ford's light truck Fiera had a similar problem: in several Spanish-speaking countries, "fiera" is slang for "ugly old woman."
• The now-defunct American Motors Corp. thought that their Matador would do well in Puerto Rico. They were wrong -- Puerto Rico is not a big bullfighting country, and "matador" is local slang for "killer."
• The Rolls-Royce Silver Mist range had to be renamed for Germany because mist means "excrement" in German.
• 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."
• 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.
• When the Pope visited Miami some years ago, an ambitious Anglo entrepreneur wanted to sell T-shirts with the logo "I saw the Pope" in Spanish. But he forgot that the definite article in Spanish has two genders. Instead of printing "El Papa" ("the Pope"), he printed "La Papa" ("the potato"). There wasn't much of a market for selling shirts that proclaimed "I saw the potato."
• 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."
• American manufacturers of Pet condensed milk introduced their product into French markets without realizing that "pet" in French means "to break wind."
  A native English speaker drew laughs from Mexican customers when she offered them samples of Fresca soda pop. "Fresca" means "lesbian" in Mexican slang.

Other translations
John F. Kennedy’s famous Berlin Wall speech was hailed as a masterpiece. However, those with even an elementary knowledge of German had to laugh heartily when our president reached the climax of the speech by stating: “Ich bin ein Berliner.” Instead of dropping the indefinite article to say that he was a Berliner, he announced to all that he was, in fact, a jelly doughnut.

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