Language
translation is a tricky process which involves an important
consideration-culture. Culture affects everything we do. Similarly culture has
a great impact in business promotions in the global world. Often companies do
blunders in translation by ignoring the aspect of culture. As an individual,
business or any organization, one should research everything from the symbols,
colours and words of the target consumer before finalising the name, tagline,
packaging and marketing campaign in their native language. There are several
examples where world’s famous businesses and companies have messed up with the
translations. Here are some of them:
KFC
When KFC
translated ‘Finger-Likin’ Good’ in Chinese language, it was translated in
Chinese as ‘We will Eat your Fingers fast’.
Cocoa Cola
Similarly Coca
Cola’s name in Chinese language was read as ‘bite the wax tadpole’.
Pepsi
When Pepsi
translated its marketing campaign, it was read as ‘we bring your ancestors back
from the dead’ in china.
General Motors
In Europe, GM
motors created a blunder by translating its campaign ‘every car has a body’
into ‘every car has a corpse’ in Spanish language.
Schweppes Tonic water
We often have a
misconception that Spanish and Italian are inter-related. Unfortunately it is not. An Italian mineral company, Traficante translated
their product for native Spanish speakers. Traficante means ‘drug dealer’ in
Spanish language. Similarly, Irish Mist, did not succeed with its translations
in German language as ‘Mist’ in German means
‘dung’.
French translations have also created
blunders due to the pronunciations. Toyota launched MR2 for French which
sounded somewhat close to ‘merde’
Companies should
consider the cultural aspect while marketing their products for foreign
customers.When pampers launched their
product for Japanese market, they showed a stork delivering baby which did not
suit Japanese consumers. According to a Japanese folklore, babies are delivered
by floating peach and not by stork!
