Global marketing & branding is big business. Translating your campaign correctly to your international target market is priceless. When deciding to translate your campaign, consider using a professional service to avoid a few of these humorous translation mistakes.

Here are five particularly funny campaigns gone wrong:

1. The Dairy Association: The Dairy Association’s huge success with the campaign “Got Milk?” prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish translation read “Are you lactating?”.
2. American Airlines: When American Airlines wanted to advertise its new leather seats in first class to the Mexican market, they translated their 'Fly in Leather' campaign literally, which meant 'Fly Naked' (vuela en cuero) in Spanish.
3. Clairol: Clairol introduced the 'Mist Stick', a curling iron, into the German market, only to find out that 'Mist' is slang for manure. Not too many people had a use for the 'Manure Stick'.
4. Coors: Coors catchphrase, 'Turn it Loose', translated into Spanish, where it was read as 'Suffer from Diarrhea'.
5. KFC: KFC's famous 'finger lickin' good' tag-line went terribly wrong in the Chinese market. It was literally translated as 'eat your fingers off'

Please avoid these translation mistakes and save yourself time and money by hiring a professional translation company. Contact us today, and see how we can help translate your campaign into a successful advertisement.

Could attachiant, eurogner or bete seller win approval from the French-language watchdog and make it into the dictionary?

The French may be notoriously touchy about their language, but it seems even the watchdogs of the august Académie Française – whose members, known as "immortals", have had the last word in matters of Gallic language since 1635 – are not averse to accepting entries to their celebrated dictionary. Continue reading here