As they say – ‘you never get a second chance to make a first impression.’
So, as far as doing business abroad is concerned, many companies spend a great deal of time, effort and money trying to develop new overseas markets through trade missions, exhibitions, conferences etc.
Much of this commitment relates to promoting the products or services your business is trying to sell to foreign buyers. However, as those of us who are involved with customer service know, the first sale will be the last if the supporting documentation fails to give trouble free guidance and support to the end user on installation, operation, servicing, guarantee etc.
This is never more true then when dealing with overseas customers. We in turn have all been recipients of failed transactions. Often humorous, occasionally frustrating. Even the simple actions of setting a digital watch to the correct time can be difficult.
Here are a few examples of translation errors that have come to our notice.
Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American ad campaign “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux”.
General Motors introduced the Nova car in South America, unaware that “no va” means “it won’t go”. It renamed the car in the Spanish markets as the ‘Caribe’.
A French manufacturer of museli translated their brand name as ‘Lilpop’s Crapsy Fruit’.
Extract from a Tokyo car rental brochure: “When a passenger of foot heace in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstracles your passsage then tootle him with vigour”.
An Indian curry powder manufacturer translated their brand name literally as “POO”.
A Japanese instruction leaflet on an electrical appliance read – “Following a period of un use it will be shot down automatically”.
In Chinese the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan “finger-lickin’ good” came over as “eat your fingers off”.
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”.
Ford launched their ‘Pinto’ model in Brazil only to find out that ‘Pinto’ is slang for “tiny male genitals”. It was renamed Corsel, which means horse.
An American T-shirt manufacturer in Miami printed shirts in Spanish for the Spanish market for the Pope’s visit. However, instead of the desired “I saw the Pope” it read “I saw the Potato”.
When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were designed to say “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you”. However, the company used the Spanish word “embarazar” for the word “embarrass”. So the ad read “it won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.”
The ‘Jolly Green Giant’ was translated into Arabic as – “intimidating Green Ogre.”
Chicken-man Frank Perdue’s slogan, “It takes a tough man to make tender chicken,” got terribly mangled in translation into Spanish. A picture of Mr Perdue with one of his chickens appeared on the billboards all over Mexico with the caption – “It takes a hard man to make a chicken affactionate.”
The Hunt-Wesson company introduced its ‘Big John’ products in French Canada as “Gros Jos” before finding out that the phrase in slang means “Big Breasts”
Barcardi concocted a fruity drink with the name “Pavian” to suggest a “French Chic” but “Pavian” means “Baboon” in German.
Coors slogan, “Turn it loose” was translated into Spanish as “Suffer from Diarrhoea.”
‘Puff Tissues’ unknowingly had a bad name in Germany since “Puff” is a colloguial term for whorehouse.
Even the top brand names in the world can occasionally have difficulty with translating not only the word, but the spirit of the word. The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as “Ke-kou-ke-la”. Unfortunately, they discovered that this meant, depending on the dialect, “bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax”. Over 40,000 Chinese characters were then researched to find an appropriate and close phonetic equivalent – “Ko-kou-ko-le”, which can be loosely translated as “happiness in the mouth”.
And finally, a brand label translated for export on a toilet roll made in Thailand – ‘Site & Smile’.
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