When International Marketing Goes Awry

[Jason Menard]

Buick forced to rename new car for Canadian market

[Gregg Bolinger]

That is too funny. The Germans were smart. Just name all your cars with Numbers. Then you don't have to worry about it.

[fred rosenberger]

I wish writers would get their facts straight before including them in their articles.
There are so many problems with the whole "Nova" story... it's just not true.

[Jim Yingst]

Snopes has spoken!

[Mani Ram]

Sometime back Bajaj Automobiles (Indian company) introduced a two wheeler named Sunny mainly targeted for young female riders.
But some (naughty) people in the state of Tamilnadu, started pronouncing it with a different accent (Su as it is in Supreme) - which means Penis.
I have heard stories about the girls riding this vechicle were teased ("Look. Her sunny is fantastic" - as if telling her penis is fantastic ).
But, I don't think it affected the sales.
So, it is not an International Marketing problem after all
[ October 23, 2003: Message edited by: Mani Ram ]

[Jason Menard]

From an article on the same topic of my previous link:

The mix-up is reminiscent of another GM vehicle with an unfortunate name. In the 1970s, GM exported its Chevrolet Nova to Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries, only to be told that Nova translated into "doesn't go". Despite the name, and contrary to popular folklore, the car sold well.

[Richard Hawkes]

Maybe that's why Fiat's "Rusting Piece of Crap 800" never took off in the UK

[Joel McNary]

Reminds me of another story about international translation. I'm not sure if this is true, but it is fairly believable (although it is a translation error that most high-schoold Spanish classes will point out...)

When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarass you." However, the company mistakenly thought the spanish word embarazar meant "embarass." Instead, the ads said that "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant!"
http://www.esu5.org/german/bloopers.htm#ParkerPen

[Mani Ram]

And here is an all time favorite.
A detergent company started selling its product in Middle-east. They came-up with an ad in which there are 3 pictures. The left most had a dirty cloth, the middle one showed the washing process and the right most picture had a clean cloth.
The problem? Arabs read right to left

[HS Thomas]

Most German consumers are baffled by English ads.
"Drive Alive" by Mitsubishi - Are you likely to drive it when you are dead ?
"Driven by Instinct" - an Audi slogan.
regards

[Axel Janssen]

One of the german candy bars is called "corny". It has lots of cereals. The marketing guys have overlooked the negative meaning of that germenglish expression in english. Overwhelming mayority of german consuments does not notice.
I would not notice, if I hadn't read that expression in a blog of one of the top 30 donators of javaranch who used that term to describe javaranch. "Corny, but great".

And some days after getting the meaning of corny from my favourite lookup vocabulary site, I heard a american kid in a shop giggling: "Look mummy, its called corny"
[ October 25, 2003: Message edited by: Axel Janssen ]

[Jason Menard]

When I lived in Japan, engrish was a never-ending source of amusement.

[Spike Spiegel]

Swedish vacuum cleaner Electrolux had this slogan in the UK:
"Nothing sucks like an Electrolux"