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."
The Chevy Nova never sold well in Spanish speaking countries. "No va"
means "it doesn't 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's inside since most people can't read.
