These are the nominees for the Chevy Nova Award. This is given out in honor
of the GM's fiasco in trying to market this car in Central and South America.
"no va" means, of course, in spanish, "it doesn't go".
01. The Dairy
Association's huge success with the campaign "Got Milk?" prompted them to
expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention the
Spanish translation read "Are you lactating?"
02. Coors put its
slogan, "Turn It Loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer From
Diarrhea."
03. Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the
following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an
Electrolux."
04. Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron,
into Germany only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many
people had use for the "Manure Stick."
05. When Gerber started selling
baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the
smiling baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies
routinely put pictures on the labels of what's inside, since many people
can't read.
06. Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue,
the name of a notorious porno magazine.
07. An American T-shirt maker
in Miami printed shirts for the Spanish market which promoted the Pope's
visit. Instead of "I saw the Pope" (el Papa), the shirts read "I Saw the
Potato" (la papa).
08. Pepsi's "Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation"
translated into "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back From the Grave" in
Chinese.
09. The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as
"Kekoukela", 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 "kokou kole", translating into "happiness in the
mouth."
10. 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."
11. 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." 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!"
12. When American Airlines
wanted to advertise its new leather first class seats in the Mexican market,
it translated its "Fly In Leather" campaign literally, which meant "Fly
Naked" (vuela en cuero) in Spanish.
[Mother Shiptons Prophecy] [Poetry]
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