Advertising Blunders.
Posted: Wed Sep 17, 2014 1:29 pm
Check out some of the advertising blunders committed by some leading global brands:
A hair products company, Clairol, introduced the "Mist Stick", a curling iron, into Germany only to find out that mist is a slang for manure. Not too many people want to use manure stick.
When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with a beautiful Caucasian baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies prefer to put pictures on the label of what's inside, since most people can't read.
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."
Not to be outdone by Coke when Pepsi started a marketing campaign 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."
Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American ad campaign: Nothing sucks like an Electrolux. But in America if something 'sucks' it means it is really bad.
In Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."
A famous drug company marketed a new remedy in the United Arab Emirates. To avoid any mistakes they used pictures. The first picture was of someone ill, the next picture showed the person taking the medication, the last picture showed him hale and hearty. What they forgot is that in the Arab world people read from right to left!
A hair products company, Clairol, introduced the "Mist Stick", a curling iron, into Germany only to find out that mist is a slang for manure. Not too many people want to use manure stick.
When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with a beautiful Caucasian baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies prefer to put pictures on the label of what's inside, since most people can't read.
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."
Not to be outdone by Coke when Pepsi started a marketing campaign 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."
Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American ad campaign: Nothing sucks like an Electrolux. But in America if something 'sucks' it means it is really bad.
In Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."
A famous drug company marketed a new remedy in the United Arab Emirates. To avoid any mistakes they used pictures. The first picture was of someone ill, the next picture showed the person taking the medication, the last picture showed him hale and hearty. What they forgot is that in the Arab world people read from right to left!
