Though embarrassing at times, examples of global marketing mistakes are a helpful way to appreciate that we’re not all the same. Any company or business conducting a marketing campaign abroad must take linguistic and cultural variations seriously.
Below, we’ve provided the top 20 marketing and communications mistakes from around the world.
1) The Japanese company Matsushita Electric was promoting a new Japanese PC for Internet users. Panasonic created the new web browser and received the license to use the cartoon character Woody Woodpecker as an interactive guide to the Internet. The day before the big marketing campaign, Panasonic realized its mistake and pulled the plug. Because? Advertisements for the new product featured the following tagline: “Touch Woody – The Internet Pecker.” The company only realized its cross-cultural mistake when an embarrassed American explained how “touching Woody’s dick” could be interpreted!
2) Swedish furniture giant IKEA somehow agreed on the name “FARTFULL” for one of their new desks.
3) In the late 1970s, Wang, the American computer company, couldn’t understand why its British branches refused to use their latest “Wang Cares” slogan. Of course, to British ears this sounds too close to “Wankers”, which really wouldn’t give any company a very positive image.
4) “Traficante” and Italian mineral water found a great reception in the Spanish underworld. In Spanish it translates as “drug dealer”.
5) In 2002, Umbro, the UK sports manufacturer, had to withdraw their new trainers (sneakers) called Zyklon. The firm received complaints from many organizations and individuals as it was the name of the gas used by the Nazi regime to murder millions of Jews in concentration camps.
6) Sharwoods, a UK food manufacturer, spent £6 million on a campaign to launch their new ‘Bundh’ sauces. He received calls from numerous Punjabi speakers telling them that “bundh” sounded like the Punjabi word for “ass”.
7) Honda introduced their new car “Fitta” to the Nordic countries in 2001. If they had taken the time to do cross-cultural market research, they might have discovered that “fitta” was an old word used in vulgar language to refer to to the woman. genitals in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. In the end they renamed it “Honda Jazz”.
8) American Motors tried to market its new car, the Matador, based on the image of courage and strength. However, in Puerto Rico the name means “killer” and was not popular on the dangerous roads of the country.
9) Proctor & Gamble used a TV commercial in Japan that was popular in Europe. The ad showed a woman taking a bath, her husband entering the bathroom and touching her. The Japanese considered this announcement an invasion of privacy, inappropriate behavior, and very poor taste.
10) Leona Helmsley should have done her homework before approving a promo comparing her Helmsley Palace Hotel in New York to the Taj Mahal, a mausoleum in India.
11) A golf ball manufacturing company packaged golf balls in four-packs for convenient purchase in Japan. Unfortunately, the pronunciation of the word “four” in Japanese sounds like the word “death” and items packed into four are unpopular.
12) Pepsodent tried to sell its toothpaste in Southeast Asia by emphasizing that it “whitens teeth.” They found that local natives chew betel nuts to blacken their teeth, which they find attractive.
13) A company was advertising glasses in Thailand featuring a variety of cute animals wearing glasses. The advertisement was a poor choice as animals are considered a low way of life and no self-respecting Thai would wear something that animals wear.
14) Fresca soda was being promoted by a saleswoman in Mexico. She was surprised that her sales pitch was greeted with laughter and then embarrassed when she learned how cool “lesbian” slang is.
15) Kellogg had to change the name of its Bran Buds cereal in Sweden when it discovered that the name roughly translated to “burned farmer.”
16) When PepsiCo advertised Pepsi in Taiwan with the “Live with Pepsi” ad, they had no idea that it would translate into Chinese as “Pepsi resurrects your ancestors.”
17) Coors put their catchphrase, “Turn It Loose,” into Spanish, where its translation read as “Suffer From Diarrhea.”
18) Frank Perdue’s chicken catchphrase, “It takes a strong man to make a chicken tender” was translated into Spanish as “It takes an excited man to make a chicken loving.”
19) Colgate introduced a toothpaste to France called Cue, the name of a notorious porn magazine.
20) During its 1994 launch campaign, the telecommunications company Orange had to change its ads in Northern Ireland. “The future is bright… the future is orange.” That campaign is an advertising legend. However, in the North the term Orange suggests the Orange Order. The implicit message that the future is bright, the future is Protestant, loyalist… did not sit well with the Catholic Irish population.
