Perhaps all the leading companies in our time are constantly striving to develop new markets, blurring more and more boundaries. But sometimes the successful promotion of certain goods and brands is hindered by peculiarities and difficulties in pronunciation, the meaning of words in different countries. And most importantly – the mistakes of marketers and translators, which can cost companies millions of dollars in direct and indirect losses.

“Whatever you call a ship, so it will sail”

The first thing that comes to mind is an incident between one of the leading automakers and Spanish. The largest American automobile concern, General Motors, actively promoted its Chevrolet Nova car to foreign markets and had quite confident success. However, in Latin America, the car was a complete failure in sales, and all because, as it became known, the word Nova in Spanish means “cannot move.” No wonder buyers ignored (at best) or laughed at the car that bears the name “Chevrolet can’t move.”

A similar incident happened with another major American car manufacturer – Ford. Actively promoting the new Ford Fierra model to the Latin American market, marketers did not take into account the language features. And yes, the expansion of the market led to defeat only because “fierro” in Spanish means “iron” – which is similar in meaning to “bucket of bolts”. By the way, it was very reasonable to rename the Russian Zhiguli to “Lada”. This is due to the fact that they began to be exported to France, and in French, Zhiguli is consonant with “giglo”, which has a very bad meaning and characterizes a man with low social responsibility. The situation is similar with the Cossacks, whose name in Finland would have sounded like “pig’s tail”, so they were renamed “Yalta”.

Clairol also chose a simple path, bringing its deodorants to the German market, using the familiar and existing slogan “Mist Stick”, translated as “foggy deodorant”. Only here in German Mist means “not tasty smelling” at all, and not “fog”, but “dung, droppings”.

Pepsi and Coca-Cola also got into a puddle

A funny case was with the American company Pepsi, which produces a non-alcoholic carbonated drink. She tried to bring to the Chinese market her product, popular in the rest of the world, with the main advertising slogan “Come Alive With the Pepsi Generation” or “Live with the Pepsi Generation.” But in Chinese, this positive and cheerful slogan sounded like “Pepsi will make your Ancestors Rise from the Graves.” The locals were perplexed and shocked, especially because of the strong ancestor cult in the culture.

Pepsi’s main competitor, Coca-Cola, also did not waste time and for a long time tried to come up with a name for selling its soda in China. The original Chinese name is “bite the wax tadpole”. As a result, the producers changed the name of the drink to “Coca Cola”, which means “Happiness in the Mouth”.

Where in Kharkov and the region to make a notarized translation

We hope you have laughed at these funny curiosities, which, unfortunately, at one time led their participants to millions in losses. And we also hope that we managed to show how valuable and important it is to find a competent specialist who can correctly and accurately, and most importantly, reliably translate certain texts.

Write and call (097) 003-22-77, we work on weekdays from 9 to 19 without a break and we are the Translation Agency in Kharkov, which works on Saturdays from 9 to 16.