Product Bloopers

[handplane]

Here is a look at how shrewd American business people translate 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 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.

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 mean "Happiness In The

Mouth."

A hair products company, Clairol, introduced the "Mist Stick", a

curling iron, into Germany only to find out that mist is slang for

manure. Not too many people had use for the manure stick.

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 can not read.

[marko_tomas13]

These apples suck but these pureed babies are delicious

nice ones handplane.

[tg1911]

Good ones handplane.

[blim]

And who says 'Murica doesn't put out good products??

Reminds me of when we were in Denmark---"I'm full" means "I'm drunk" in Danish. They laughed everytime someone said that!

Liz