Cross-Cultural Marketing
Blunders
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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."
• 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
• 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.
• 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."
• Kellogg had to rename its Bran Buds
cereal in Sweden when it discovered that
the name roughly translated to "burned
farmer."
• 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."
• 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.
• In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic
Water translated the name into
"Schweppes Toilet Water."
• In a Yugoslavian hotel: The flattening of
underwear with pleasure is the job of the
chambermaid.
• In a Bangkok dry cleaner's: Drop your
trousers here for best results.
• At a Budapest zoo: Please do not feed the
animals. If you have any suitable food,
give it to the guard on duty.
• 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."
• 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.
• A cologne for men pictured a pastoral
scene with a man and his dog. It failed in
Islamic countries dogs are considered
unclean.
• 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
• 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.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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
• 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..
• 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!
• The Swedish furniture giant IKEA
somehow agreed upon the name
"FARTFULL" for one of its new desks.
Enough said..
• "Traficante" and Italian mineral water
found a great reception in Spain's
underworld. In Spanish it translates as
"drug dealer".
• 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
• 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".
• 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!
• When Coca-Cola first marketed Coke in
China in the 1920’s, 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.”
• Chevy’s Nova translated into Spanish as
“no va”…”it doesn’t go.”
Hall of Shame List
•
•
•
•
Krapp toilet paper (Denmark)
Crapsy Fruit Cereal (France)
Poo curry powder (Argentina)
Pschitt lemonade (France)
• Sign at a laundry in Rome: Ladies, leave
your clothes here and spend the
afternoon having a good time
• Coors beer slogan “get loose with Coors”
in Spanish reads: “get the runs with Coors”
• KFC slogan “finger lickin’ good” in
Chinese: “eat your fingers off.”