AD IN THE MISSOULIAN
family has been killed...."
LAWYER COMMERCIAL ON AN ORLANDO, FLORIDA TV STATION
for test of gas chamber."
AD IN ARIZONA REPUBLIC
Soft & Genital Bath Tissues or Facial Tissue - 89 cents
Georgia Peaches * California Grown
89 cents lb.
Ground Beast: 99 cents lb.
Kellogg's Pot Tarts - $1.99 box
Fully Cooked Boneless Smoked Man
$2.09 lb.
and OSCAR MAYER
MEN'S CLOTHING STORE AD
chat as PRETTY_BLUE_EYES)
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. 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" translated into "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave" in Chinese.
Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken," was translated into Spanish as "It takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate."
When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." Instead, the company thought that the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read, "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."
Coors translated its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhea."
Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer, Electrolux, used the following in an American ad campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."
Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron, into Germany only to find that "mist" is slang for manure.
When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the U.S., with the beautiful Caucasian baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the label of what is inside since most people can't read.
The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as "Ke-kou-ke-la," meaning "Bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax," depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 characters to find a phonetic equivalent "ko-kou-ko-le," translating into "happiness in the mouth."
DANIEL J. BOORSTIN
"Potatoe."
DAN QUAYLE
