6 mistakes businesses have made
Due to translation errors
KFC
The company started off in the wrong foot when expanding their stores internationally. When translating their famous slogan of “finger lickin’ good” they made the mistake of translating it to Chinese as “eat your fingers off”. Although this made KFC look bad they are the biggest fast food chain today in China.
Pepsi
In 1960 Pepsi expanded its business to China. At this time Pepsi had the slogan of ‘Come alive with Pepsi’. The slogan was translated as ‘Pepsi brings your ancestors back from dead’. This mistake made Pepsi look bad which caused them to lose business.
Ford
When Ford made plans to expand to Europe
They made a mistake when expanding to Belgium
In the intent of saying every car has a great body
It was translated every car has a great corpse
HSBC Bank
HBSC bank spent 5 years developing a campaign which centered around the term “Assume nothing (banking)”. When bringing this term oversees, however, it translated to ‘Do nothing”. This term clearly does not motivate a potential customer to open an account with HSBC. It would go on to cost $10 million for HBSC to rebrand itself under the phrase “The world’s private bank”. Overall, this blunder did not only mean the reworking of a single advertising campaign, but the company’s marketing overall.
Electrolux
This company’s advertising issues were unique in that they did not originate from an english (American) phrase that was translated. Instead, this swedish vacuum company decided to use its slogan “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux” in American markets. While the phrase was translated correctly, the term “sucks” made Americans not very eager to pick up a vacuum from this company. In Sweden, the term “sucks” has no slang meaning and thus Electrolux saw no issues in using this slogan for promotion.
Braniff Airlines
Braniff Airlines wanted to make it known to potential customer’s south of the border that it would not be offering fully leather seats. They used their slogan “Fly in leather”, and in most spanish speaking latin american countries it translated just fine. In Mexico (Mexican translation), however, it was made out to be “Fly Naked”. To the mass of the market, this was not very appealing. This type of message can also give a brand negative connotations and a negative reputation.
Resources
http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/5241-international-marketing-fails.html
http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/the-20-worst-brand-translations-of-all-time.html
http://www.k-international.com/blog/7-international-marketing-campaigns-that-failed-to-translate/