Cross-Cultural Marketing Blunders

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Cross-Cultural Marketing Blunders
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• An American oil rig supervisor in Indonesia
  shouted at an employee to take a boat to shore.
  Since it is no-one berates an Indonesian in
  public, a mob of outraged workers chased the
  supervisor with axes.

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• Pepsodent tried to sell its toothpaste in
  Southeast Asia by emphasizing that it "whitens
  your teeth." They found out that the local
  natives chew betel nuts to blacken their teeth
  which they find attractive.

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• A company advertised eyeglasses in Thailand by
  featuring a variety of cute animals wearing
  glasses. The ad was a poor choice since animals
  are considered to be a form of low life and no
  self respecting Thai would wear anything worn by
  animals.

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• The soft drink Fresca was being promoted by a
  saleswoman in Mexico. She was surprised that her
  sales pitch was greeted with laughter, and later
  embarrassed when she learned that fresca is slang
  for "lesbian."

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• When President George Bush went to Japan with Lee
  Iacocca and other American business magnates, and
  directly made explicit and direct demands on
  Japanese leaders, they violated Japanese
  etiquette. To the Japanese (who use high context
  language) it is considered rude and a sign of
  ignorance or desperation to lower oneself to make
  direct demands. Some analysts believe it severely
  damaged the negotiations and confirmed to the
  Japanese that Americans are barbarians

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• A soft drink was introduced into Arab countries
  with an attractive label that had stars on
  it--six-pointed stars. The Arabs interpreted this
  as pro-Israeli and refused to buy it. Another
  label was printed in ten languages, one of which
  was Hebrew--again the Arabs did not buy it.

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• U.S. and British negotiators found themselves at
  a standstill when the American company proposed
  that they "table" particular key points. In the
  U.S. "Tabling a motion" means to not discuss it,
  while the same phrase in Great Britain means to
  "bring it to the table for discussion."

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• Kellogg had to rename its Bran Buds cereal in
  Sweden when it discovered that the name roughly
  translated to "burned farmer."

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• When Pepsico advertised Pepsi in Taiwan with the
  ad "Come Alive With Pepsi" they had no idea that
  it would be translated into Chinese as "Pepsi
  brings your ancestors back from the dead."

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• American medical containers were distributed in
  Great Britain and caused quite a stir. The
  instructions to "Take off top and push in
  bottom," innocuous to Americans, had very strong
  sexual connotations to the British.

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• In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water
  translated the name into "Schweppes Toilet
  Water."

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• In a Yugoslavian hotel The flattening of
  underwear with pleasure is the job of the
  chambermaid.

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• In a Bangkok dry cleaner's Drop your trousers
  here for best results.

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• At a Budapest zoo Please do not feed the
  animals. If you have any suitable food, give it
  to the guard on duty.

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• Managers at one American company were startled
  when they discovered that the brand name of the
  cooking oil they were marketing in a Latin
  American country translated into Spanish as
  "Jackass Oil."

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• American Motors tried to market its new car, the
  Matador, based on the image of courage and
  strength. However, in Puerto Rico the name means
  "killer" and was not popular on the hazardous
  roads in the country.

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• A cologne for men pictured a pastoral scene with
  a man and his dog. It failed in Islamic countries
  dogs are considered unclean.

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• Proctor Gamble used a television commercial in
  Japan that was popular in Europe. The ad showed a
  woman bathing, her husband entering the bathroom
  and touching her. The Japanese considered this ad
  an invasion of privacy, inappropriate behavior,
  and in very poor taste

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• An American business person refused an offer of a
  cup of coffee from a Saudi businessman. Such a
  rejection is considered very rude and the
  business negotiations became stalled.

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• One company printed the "OK" finger sign on each
  page of its catalogue. In many parts of Latin
  America that is considered an obscene gesture.
  Six months of work were lost because they had to
  reprint all the catalogues.

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• Leona Helmsley should have done her homework
  before she approved a promotion that compared her
  Helmsley Palace Hotel in New York as comparable
  to the Taj Mahal--a mausoleum in India.

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• A golf ball manufacturing company packaged golf
  balls in packs of four for convenient purchase in
  Japan. Unfortunately, pronunciation of the word
  "four" in Japanese sounds like the word "death"
  and items packaged in fours are unpopular

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• Locum is a Swedish company. As most companies do
  at Christmas they sent out Christmas cards to
  customers. In 1991 they decided to give their
  logo a little holiday spirit by replacing the "o"
  in Locum with a heart. You can see the result..

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• The Japanese company Matsushita Electric was
  promoting a new Japanese PC for internet users.
  Panasonic created the new web browser and had
  received license to use the cartoon character
  Woody Woodpecker as an interactive internet
  guide.
• The day before the huge marketing campaign,
  Panasonic realized its error and pulled the plug.
  Why? The ads for the new product featured the
  following slogan "Touch Woody - The Internet
  Pecker." The company only realized its cross
  cultural blunder when an embarrassed American
  explain what "touch Woody's pecker" could be
  interpreted as!

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• The Swedish furniture giant IKEA somehow agreed
  upon the name "FARTFULL" for one of its new
  desks. Enough said..

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• "Traficante" and Italian mineral water found a
  great reception in Spain's underworld. In Spanish
  it translates as "drug dealer".

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• In 2002, Umbro the UK sports manufacturer had to
  withdraw its new trainers (sneakers) called the
  Zyklon. The firm received complaints from many
  organisations and individuals as it was the name
  of the gas used by the Nazi regime to murder
  millions of Jews in concentration camps

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• Sharwoods, a UK food manufacturer, spent 6
  million on a campaign to launch its new 'Bundh'
  sauces. It  received calls from numerous Punjabi
  speakers telling them that "bundh" sounded just
  like the Punjabi word for "arse".

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• A nice cross cultural example of the fact that
  all pictures or symbols are not interpreted the
  same across the world staff at the African port
  of Stevadores saw the "internationally
  recognised" symbol for "fragile" (i.e. broken
  wine glass) and presumed it was a box of broken
  glass. Rather than waste space they threw all the
  boxes into the sea!

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• When Coca-Cola first marketed Coke in China in
  the 1920s, it developed a group of Chinese
  characters that, when pronounced, sounded like
  the product name. Unfortunately the characters
  actually translated as bite the wax tadpole.
  Now the Coke characters translate as happiness
  in the mouth.

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• Chevys Nova translated into Spanish as no
  vait doesnt go.

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Hall of Shame List

• Krapp toilet paper (Denmark)
• Crapsy Fruit Cereal (France)
• Poo curry powder (Argentina)
• Pschitt lemonade (France)

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• Sign at a laundry in Rome Ladies, leave your
  clothes here and spend the afternoon having a
  good time

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• Coors beer slogan get loose with Coors in
  Spanish reads get the runs with Coors

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• KFC slogan finger lickin good in Chinese eat
  your fingers off.