Spotted on my way to work this morning:
Hold childrens hands on the stairs.
Slab’s and paving’s.
Maybe all the misplaced apostrophes in the world make up for the missing ones? I prescribe a large dose of Lynne Truss ...
Wednesday, 30 January 2008
Monday, 28 January 2008
Don't do what these companies did ...
Here are a few stories about slogans from international companies which, I’ve heard, didn’t turn out exactly as planned.
Orange had to drop its “The future’s bright … the future’s Orange” slogan from use in Northern Ireland, where its implication that the future was Orange (that is, Protestant) sat very uncomfortably with the Catholic population.
The Scandinavian vacuum-cleaner people Electrolux were either very brave or very silly when they launched their slogan in America: “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux”.
It’s rumoured that Reed swiftly dropped an ill-conceived tagline from its Business Information service that read, “If it’s news to you, it’s news to us”.
The Chinese translation of KFC’s “Finger Lickin’ Good” came out as a rather unappetising, “Eat your fingers off”.
Another slogan that suffered a mangled translation was Pepsi’s “Come alive with the Pepsi generation”. In the Taiwanese dialect it promised, “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead”.
The “Turn it loose” slogan by Coors translated into Spanish as “Suffer from diarrhoea”, while the Dairy Association’s “Got milk?” campaign ended up asking, “Are you lactating?”
Spanish has proved tricky for many an advertising agency, it seems, because Frank Perdue’s chicken slogan, “It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken” translated as, “It takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate”.
Another Spanish mix-up occurred when Parker launched a pen in Mexico with a slogan that was supposed to mean, “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you”. The translation reassuringly said, “It won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant”.
Orange had to drop its “The future’s bright … the future’s Orange” slogan from use in Northern Ireland, where its implication that the future was Orange (that is, Protestant) sat very uncomfortably with the Catholic population.
The Scandinavian vacuum-cleaner people Electrolux were either very brave or very silly when they launched their slogan in America: “Nothing sucks like an Electrolux”.
It’s rumoured that Reed swiftly dropped an ill-conceived tagline from its Business Information service that read, “If it’s news to you, it’s news to us”.
The Chinese translation of KFC’s “Finger Lickin’ Good” came out as a rather unappetising, “Eat your fingers off”.
Another slogan that suffered a mangled translation was Pepsi’s “Come alive with the Pepsi generation”. In the Taiwanese dialect it promised, “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead”.
The “Turn it loose” slogan by Coors translated into Spanish as “Suffer from diarrhoea”, while the Dairy Association’s “Got milk?” campaign ended up asking, “Are you lactating?”
Spanish has proved tricky for many an advertising agency, it seems, because Frank Perdue’s chicken slogan, “It takes a strong man to make a tender chicken” translated as, “It takes an aroused man to make a chicken affectionate”.
Another Spanish mix-up occurred when Parker launched a pen in Mexico with a slogan that was supposed to mean, “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you”. The translation reassuringly said, “It won’t leak in your pocket and make you pregnant”.
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