[Sca-cooks] Truth in advertising

[Brett McNamara]

I love these things, collect em, actually.  Here's a few more that
missed your list.

Enjoy

---------

The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem - Feeling Free," got
translated in the Japanese market into "When smoking Salem, you feel
so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty."

Ford had a similar problem to Nova in Brazil when the Pinto flopped.
The company found out that Pinto was Brazilian slang for "tiny male
genitals". Ford pried all the nameplates off and substituted Corcel,
which means horse.

When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were
supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you."
However, the company's mistakenly thought the spanish word "embarazar"
meant embarrass. Instead the ads said that "It wont leak in your
pocket and make you pregnant."

Chicken-man Frank Perdue's slogan, "It takes a tough man to make a
tender chicken," got terribly mangled in another Spanish translation.
A photo of Perdue with one of his birds appeared on billboards all
over Mexico with a caption that explained "It takes a hard man to make
a chicken aroused."

Hunt-Wesson introduced its Big John products in French Canada as Gros
Jos before finding out that the phrase, in slang, means "big breasts."
In this case, however, the name problem did not have a noticeable
effect on sales.

Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a
notorious porno mag.

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

Japan's second-largest tourist agency was mystified when it entered
English-speaking markets and began receiving requests for unusual sex
tours. Upon finding out why, the owners of Kinki Nippon Tourist
Company changed its name



On Sat, 4 Dec 2004 09:39:46 -0500, Phlip <phlip at 99main.com> wrote:
> 
> Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...
> 
> Bizarre News - Truth In Advertising:
> 
> These are some nominees for the Chevy Nova Award. This is