Emissionen Nr 6 1996: Coolt
The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kouke-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 Chines 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 the Caribe
in its Spanish
markets.
Ford had a similar problem in Brazil whe 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's mistakenly thought the spanish word
embarazar
meant embarrass.
Instead the ads said, It won't 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, Ï 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
.
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.