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Product Names in Foreign Languages
Here's a look at how shrewd American business people translate their slogans into foreign languages:
When Braniff translated a slogan touting its upholstery, "Fly in leather," it came out in Spanish as "Fly naked."
Chicken magnate Frank Perdue's line, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken," sounds much more interesting in Spanish: "It takes a sexually stimulated man to make a chicken affectionate."
When Vicks first introduced its cough drops on the German market, they were chagrined to learn that the German pronunciation of "v" is f - which makes "Vicks" in German the phonetic equivalent of "sexual penetration."
Not to be outdone, Puffs tissues tried later to introduce its product, only to learn that "Puff" in German is a colloquial term for a whorehouse.
The Chevy Nova never sold well in Spanish speaking countries. "No va" means "doesn't go" in Spanish.
When Gerber first started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as here in the USA - with the cute baby on the label. Later they found out that in Africa that companies routinely put pictures on the label of what's inside since more people can't read.
Alain Gottcheiner, <agot@ulb.ac.be>, informs us that in French "Gerber" means "to puke" and belongs to the same language level. Not a very good advertisment!
When Pepsi started marketing its products in China a few years back, they translated their slogan, "Come alive, you're in the Pepsi generation" pretty literally. The slogan in Chinese really meant, "Pepsi Brings Your .....Ancestors Back from the Grave."