Misleading Ads.


- When Coors beer decided to put its slogan "Turn It Loose" into
  Spanish, the translation read as "Suffer From Diarrhea."

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

- Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron, into
  Germany only to discover that "mist" is slang for manure. Like
  Jack Trout once noted in his book "The New Positioning," "Not
  too many people found any use for a 'Manure Stick'."

- When Gerber began selling its baby food in Africa, they used
  the same packaging as in the USA -- with the picture of the
  cute, smiling baby on the label. They later learned to their
  dismay that, because illiteracy in Africa was high, companies
  routinely put pictures on product labels of what's inside.

- Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name
  of a notorious pornographic magazine (being French myself, Cue
  stands for a person's "posterior," if you know what I mean.)

- When the Pope visited the United States, an American T-shirt
  maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market, which
  promoted the Pope's visit. But instead of "I Saw the Pope" (el
  Papa), the shirts read "I Saw the Potato" (la papa).

- 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."

- Speaking of cola and Chinese, Coca-Cola attempted to translate
  its name into a phonetic equivalent of the Chinese alphabet. At
  first, it read as "Kekoukela," meaning "bite the wax tadpole"
  or "female horse stuffed with wax," depending on the dialect.
  (Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a substitution,
  "kokou kole," which translates into "happiness in the mouth.")

- Parker marketed a ballpoint pen with ads stating "It won't leak
  in your pocket and embarrass you." When they entered the
  Mexican market, the company thought that the word "embarazar"
  meant to embarrass. But it really means "to impregnate," so the
  ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."

- When Braniff Airlines wanted to translate its advertising
  touting its new leather first class upholstery to the Mexican
  market, it translated its "Fly In Leather" campaign literally,
  which meant "Fly Naked" (vuela en cuero) in Spanish.

- The Chevy Nova by General Motors entered South America with no
  translation. But GM was apparently unaware that "no va" means
  "no go" or "it won't start." After they figured out why sales
  were dim, they renamed it to Caribe for its Spanish markets.

- Kentucky Fried Chicken's famous slogan "Finger-lickin' Good,"
  in Chinese, came out as "eat your fingers off."

- Schweppes once translated their Tonic Water in Italian, which
  turned out to mean Schweppes Toilet Water.

- Japan's second largest tourist agency was mystified when
  English-speaking customers requested unusual sex tours. The
  owners of Kinki Nippon Tourist Company later changed its name.