• From misleading people into thinking you’re selling baby meat to resurrecting your great
grandmother, we look at 12 Dumbest Advertising Translations.
12 – Bensi, • There’s not many ways to go wrong when
naming a car company, just pick something that sounds sexy and fast but doesn’t translate
to death on wheels.
• Mercedes Benz didn’t get the memo on that though and started releasing cars under
a name that translated to “Rush to your death” in China.
‘Bensi’ • Of course ads for a car that will get
you to death’s door in record speed didn’t go too well and eventually they changed the
name to ‘Ben Chi’. 11 – Fly in Leather,
• Well with poor ads like this it’s no surprise Braniff were the first major airline
to go bankrupt.
• Braniff had been using the slogan “Fly in Leather” in English speaking countries
to advertise their comfortable, rich leather seats.
But in Spanish Braniff accidentally told customers to “Fly Naked”.
• That’s just the way to get customers, offer them the chance to see the sweaty balls
of the guy sitting next to them.
10 – The Jolly Green Giant, • If your branding totally relies on a friendly
mascot, you should probably but in a bit more effort than running it through google translate.
• At least that’s what I’m assuming happened here.
General Mills made an icon out of the canned vegetable selling Jolly Green Giant, but in
Arabic the name translated to “Intimidating Green Monster”.
• That’s right you better buy that God-damn can of peas, or he’s going to get you and
shove them down your stupid throat.
9 – Every Car has a High Quality Body, • Car companies always seem to be trying
to sell you some novelty feature, but I don’t think anyone would want the one Ford were
offering.
• Attempting to bring the slogan “Every car has a high quality body” to Belgium,
they inadvertently translated “body” to mean “Corpse”.
• Come down and get your new hatchback, complete with that new corpse smell.
Then again maybe they were just trying to tap into the necrophilia market.
8 – Mist Stick, • This one seems to have a pretty lazy name
in English so it’s no surprise that no one double checked the translation.
• Clairol released a curling iron called “Mist Stick”, which sounds barely appealing
as it is.
But in Germany it takes on a whole different meaning.
See over there “Mist” means “Manure”.
• “Manure Stick” didn’t exactly fly of shelves.
Leaving Clairol to discover that people don’t want to put something essentially called “shit
stick” in their hair.
7 – Gerber Baby Food, • Turns out words aren’t the only thing
that can fail the translation process, images can too.
• When Gerber released their baby food in Ethiopia they made the mistake of not changing
their iconic packaging.
Why does that matter?
Because in Ethiopia food products normally display the contents on the packaging because
of low literacy rates.
• So yeah putting a smiling baby on the label pretty much translates to “pureed
baby meat inside”.
6 – It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you,
• Parker pens apparently have an unknown edge on their competition, they won’t knock
you up.
• The popular pen maker made a fundamental mistake that turned the line in their Mexican
ads from “it won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you” into “it won’t leak
in your pocket and get you pregnant.”
• But hey it’s a fair concern, leaks cause unwanted pregnancies all the time.
You can be safe in the knowledge that Parker’s pen is shooting blanks.
5 – Ford Pinto, • Long before Ford tried to sell you a car
containing a dead body, they insulting your penis size.
• The Pinto was named after a colour pattern found in horses…but in Brazil, pinto had
become slang for something else - a tiny penis.
• Considering that “small cock” has more in common with the actual car than “patterns
on a horse”, maybe this wasn’t a translation fail at all.
4 – Schweppes Tonic Water, • Who would have thought that one slight
error would make your product 200% more appealing to dogs…too bad they can’t read.
• Schweppes had the bad luck to translate their famous tonic water into toilet water
in Italy.
Considering tonic water is such a basic thing it’s hard to understand how that even happened.
• This probably had a bigger impact on bars than anywhere else.
“I’ll have a gin & toilet water thanks…wait no, that sounds gross.
Make it whiskey, not gin”.
3 – Brings you Back to Life!, • Yeah in English this ad campaign is non-sense
so it’s not a surprise that it failed to pass the language barrier.
• Pepsi was trying to run the slogan “Brings you back to life!”
in China.
But instead of hyping up Pepsi’s energising powers they told people the soda will “Bring
your ancestors back from the dead!”
• You can imagine the disappointment on people’s faces as they poured cola on Grandpa
Chen’s grave only to see it drain away.
2 – It Takes a Tough Man to Make a Tender Chicken,
• Nothing like some good ol’ fashioned bestiality to get people to buy your tender
meat.
• Well whoever translated Perdue’s chicken adverts into Spanish certainly thinks that.
Turning the line “it takes a tough man to make a tender chicken” into “It takes
a virile man to make a chicken pregnant”.
• Yeeah I’m pretty sure that’s not what they wanted to say.
Unless Perdue actually cracked the secret to human-avian breeding and have actually
been creating a secret army of virile chicken men and this lone heroic translator is trying
to warn us all!
OH GOD they are gonna peck our eyes out!
1 – Finger Lick’n Good, • Hell if the chicken men don’t get you
then colonel Sanders is gonna bite your fucking fingers off.
• People in China got a rude awakening when KFC mistakenly translated “Finger Lick’n
Good” into “We’ll eat your fingers off”.
MmMmm Kentucky fried corpses.
• Well that’s kinda close I guess, I’d eat someone’s fingers off if they were coated
in KFC Gravy.