Top 10 Most Brilliant Advertising Mess 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 ballpoint 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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