Translation Fails by Multinational Corporations: Don't Let This Happen to You

Cracking an international market can be tricky due to language and cultural differences. Even big multi-national corporations have run into trouble. Here are a just a few examples:

• Taco Bell's new website in Japan made some headlines before it was swiftly taken down. It was apparently built using the Google Translate service, rather than a professional translator. The result? Cheesy chips became "low quality chips" and Crunchwrap Supreme became "Supreme Court beef."
• Coors put its slogan "Turn it loose" into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhea."
• The Microsoft ad slogan was translated and marketed in Japan as: "If you don't know where you want to go, we'll make sure you get taken." No wonder Macs are the best-selling computer in Japan!
• In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead."
• In Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."
• When Clairol introduced its "Mist Stick" curling iron into Germany, it later learned that mist is slang for manure. Not too many people had a use for the manure stick.

Want to avoid bad first impressions, embarrassment and costly mistakes like these as you market internationally and sell your products or services in other countries and cultures? Contact AAA Translation. We have been in business for 22 years, use real humans as translators (not machines) and work within clients' budgets to provide ACCURATE, timely and affordable translation services in any language. Learn more at www.aaatranslation.com.