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Cultural awareness advertising blunders
- 1. Cultural Awareness Advertising Blunders Cultural awareness is very important when marketers attempt to promote their product in different cultural environments.
- 2. An Italian company’s “Traficante” mineral water received an interesting reception in Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries…
- 3. Rolls-Royce avoided using the name “Silver Mist” in German markets and instead called it “Silver Shadow” Sunbeam, however entered the German market with its Mist Stick hair-curling iron (oops!) What does “mist” mean in German?
- 4. Trying to blend English with Maori, Coca-Cola wrote on New Zealand vending machines: "Kia Ora, Mate!" Translation: "Hello, death!" "Kia ora" is commonly translated as "hello" in Maori, while "mate" can be used as "buddy" in English. But in Maori, "mate" is not the kind of buddy you want to have – it's a word that is associated with "death.“
- 5. But what if the target market reads from left to right?? Imagine trying to sell Coca-Cola abroad but you don’t speak the language so you use posters to convey its benefit… Sound like a good idea?
- 6. A children’s workbench named “Fartfull” The word means “Speedy” in Swedish and suggests mobility in German
- 7. PARKER ad for pens in Mexico: No goteará en tu bolsillo ni te embarazara (It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you)
- 8. In the 1960s Electrolux used this slogan to market the Scandinavian Vacuums in the UK.
- 9. Colgate’s Cue toothpaste had problems in France, as cue is a crude term for “butt” in French.
- 10. In Conclusion, Culture, words, and translation matter!
Editor's Notes
- A disappointed salesmen of coca-cola returned from his assignment to Saudi arabia. A friend asked, “why weren’t you successful with the Saudis?” the salesman explained, when I got posted, I was very confident that I would make a good sales pitch. But I had a problem. I didn’t know how to speak Arabic. So I planned to convey the message through three posters. First poster: a man lying in the hot desert sand totally exhausted and fainting. Second poster: the man is drinking coca-cola Third poster: our man is now totally refreshed. “Teriffic! That should have worked!” said the friend. “the hell it should have!” said the salesman. “no one told me they read from right to left!”
- A children’s workbench named “Fartfull” the word means “Speedy” in Swedish and suggests mobility in German
- When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you.“ However, the company mistakenly thought the Spanish word "embarazar" meant embarrass. Instead the ads said that "It won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."