The Amazing Book of Useless Information

The Dairy Association’s successful “Got milk?” campaign prompted them to extend their advertising to Mexico. They discovered the Spanish translation was “Are you lactating?”

Coors translated its slogan “Turn it loose” into Spanish, where it was read as “Suffer from diarrhea.”

Clairol introduced the Mist Stick, a curling iron, into Germany only to find out that mist is slang for manure.

When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the United States, with a smiling baby on the label. Later, they learned that, in Africa, companies routinely put pictures of what’s inside on the labels, since many people can’t read.

When American Airlines wanted to advertise its new first-class leather seats in the Mexican market, it translated its “Fly in leather” campaign literally, which meant “Fly naked” (vuela en cuero) in Spanish.

Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno magazine.

An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market promoting the pope’s visit, but, instead of “I saw the pope” (el Papa), the shirts read “I saw the potato” (la papa).

Pepsi’s “Come alive with the Pepsi generation” slogan translated into “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave” in Chinese.

The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as Kek oukela, meaning “bite the wax tadpole” or “female horse stuffed with wax,” depending on the dialect. Coke then researched forty thousand characters to find a phonetic equivalent kokou kole, which translated as “happiness in the mouth.”

American chicken-man Frank Perdue’s slogan “It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken” got terribly mangled in a Spanish translation. A photo of Perdue with one of his birds appeared on billboards all over Mexico with the caption “It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused.”

When Parker pens marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to read, “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you.” The company mistranslated the word “embarrass” as embarazar (to impregnate), so the ad read: “It won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant.”

Toyota renamed their MR2 model “MR” in France, because they feared that, if the French pronounced MR2 quickly, it could sound like “Toyota merdeux” (“is terrible”).

The American slogan for Salem cigarettes—“Salem—feeling free”—was translated in the Japanese market as “When smoking Salem, you feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty.”

Ford had a problem in Brazil when the Pinto car flopped. When the company found out that Pinto was Brazilian slang for “tiny male genitals,” they pried the nameplates off and substituted Corcel, which means “horse.”

When Vicks first introduced its cough drops to the German market, they were irritated to learn that the German pronunciation of “v” is “f ”—which in German is the guttural equivalent of “sexual penetration.” Not to be outdone, Puffs tissues tried to introduce its product, only to learn that puff in German is a colloquial term for a whorehouse.

Chrysler Corporation built a compact Plymouth that they named the Volare, presumably “to fly” in Italian, as that was a popular song at the time. Someone in the body-styling division decided, without consultation apparently, that an accent mark looked good on the “e.” With that change, in Spanish it could mean “I will fly,” but it could also be translated as “I will explode.”

“Body by Fisher,” boasted the auto giant General Motors. “Corpse by Fisher” was how the Belgians read it.

Bacardi concocted a fruity drink with the name Pavian to suggest French chic . . . but pavian means baboon in German.

When Otis Engineering took part in an exhibition in Moscow, a translator somehow managed to render a “completion equipment” sign into “equipment for orgasms.”

The Jolly Green Giant brand translated into Arabic means “intimidating green ogre.”

A famous drug company marketed a new remedy in the United Arab Emirates and used pictures to avoid any mistakes. The first picture was of someone ill, the next picture showed the person taking the medication, the last picture showed them looking well. What they forgot is that in the Arab world people read from right to left.

Japan’s second-largest tourist agency was mystified when it entered English-speaking markets and began receiving requests for unusual sex tours. When they found out why, the owners of Kinki Nippon Tourist Company changed its name.

Microsoft Mouse was translated into Italian as “Micro tender rat” on the instruction sheet for a Taiwanese Microsoft-compatible mouse.

MEMORABLE SLOGANS

Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following advertisement in an American campaign: “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux.”

In an effort to boost orange juice sales in England, a campaign was devised to extol the drink’s eye-opening, pick-me-up qualities. Hence, the slogan “Orange juice. It gets your pecker up.”

FALSE ADVERTISING

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