Business
Slogans
From "American Demographics" magazine.
Here is a look at how shrewd American
business people have translated their slogans into foreign languages:
When Braniff translated a slogan
touting its upholstery, "Fly in Leather," it came out in Spanish as "Fly
Naked".
Coors put its slogan, "Turn It Loose,"
into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer From Diarrhea".
Chicken magnate Frank Perdue's line,
"It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken," sounds much more interesting
in Spanish: "It takes a sexually stimulated man to make a chicken affectionate".
When Vicks first introduced its cough
drops to 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 "whorehouse".
The Chevy Nova never sold well in
Spanish-speaking countries. "No va" in Spanish means "It does not
go".
When Pepsi started marketing its
products in China a few years back, they translated their slogan, "Pepsi
Brings You Back to Life" pretty literally. The slogan in Chinese
really meant, "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Grave".
When Coca-Cola first shipped to China,
they named the product something that when pronounced sounded like "Coca-Cola".
The only problem was that the characters used meant "Bite The Wax Tadpole."
They later changed to a set of characters that meant "Happiness In The
Mouth".
When Gerber first started selling
baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as here in the USA—with
the cute baby on the label. Later, they found out that in Africa,
companies routinely put pictures on the label of what is inside since most
people cannot read.
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