posted 29 August 2002 12:23            

Communicating to one's customers is essential to business from whatever
angle you look at it. Sometimes, however,the ability does not match the desire. It shouldn't be that hard, yet even the multi-nationals run into trouble from time to time.

For example:

The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as Ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means 'bite the wax tadpole,' or 'female horse stuffed with wax' depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic 'Ko-Kou-Ko-Le,' meaning 'happiness in the mouth'.

In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan 'Come alive with Pepsi Generation' was mistakenly rendered 'Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead.'

Ford had a problem in Brazil when the Pinto flopped. To its horror the company discovered that 'Pinto' was Brazilian slang for 'Tiny male genitals.' Ford apparently took a screwdriver to the name plates and substituted 'Corcel', which means 'horse'.

Likewise the Chevy Nova in Spanish turned out to mean 'the Chevy won't go'.

In Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan 'finger-lickin' good' came out as 'eat your fingers off'...

...and finally:
Whilst on the subject of chickens; Head honcho in poultry, Frank Perdue's slogan, 'It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken.' Got hopelessly mangled in another Spanish translation. Billboards featuring Frank P himself were seen all over Mexico explaining to motorists that 'It takes a hard man to get a chicken aroused.'