[nukkad] Top Ten Marketing Screw Ups

["Nelson Fernandes" <>]

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Top Ten Marketing Screw Ups

1. Coors put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish,
where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhea."

2. Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the
following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like
an Electrolux."

3. Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick", a curling iron,
into German only to find out that "mist" is slang for
manure. Not too many people had use for the "manure
stick."

4. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa,
they used the same packaging as in the U.S., with the
beautiful Caucasian baby on the label. Later they
learned that in Africa, companies routinely put
pictures on the label of what's inside, since most
people can't read.

5. Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called
Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.

6. An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts
for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit.
Instead of "I saw the Pope" (el Papa), the shirts read
"I saw the potato" (la papa).

7. Pepsi's "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation"
translated into "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from
the grave", in Chinese.

8. Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "it takes a strong
man to make a tender chicken" was translated into
Spanish as "it takes an aroused man to make a chicken
affectionate."

9. The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Ke-
kou-ke-la", meaning "Bite the wax tadpole" or "female
horse stuffed with wax", depending on the dialect. Coke
then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic
equivalent "ko-kou-ko-le", translating into "happiness
in the mouth."

10. When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in
Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, "it won't
leak in your pocket and embarrass you". Instead, the
company thought that the word "embarazar" (to
impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: "It
won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."




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