I've been working on a gig for some Swedish guys and found a reference to some branding that was less than stellar - for the Swedish company Electrolux.
Their advertising slogan in the Sixties was -
"Nothing sucks like an Electrolux"
Brilliant eh?
Here's some more. Lifted from Wikipedia -
- Lancia Dedra: this car sold poorly outside Italy, particularly in English-speaking markets, where research showed that people associated it with danger (apparently affected by the name's similarity to the word "dead")
- Honda : In 2001, Honda intended to release an automobile known as the Fit in Asian markets as the Honda Fitta on the European market. However, in Swedish and Norwegian, fitta is a crude reference to female genitalia, and the vehicle was rebranded Honda Jazz.
- McDonald's : In January 2005, McDonald's published banners proclaiming Double cheeseburger? I'd Hit It. In this obvious blunder, the copywriters mistook the strictly sexual slang expression for a term of general approval.
- Kentucky Fried Chicken: An advertising campaign in China attempting to translate the slogan Finger lickin' good! into Chinese failed miserably, proclaiming Eat your fingers off.
- Mitsubishi Pajero: The company noticed too late that pajero means wanker in Spanish and renamed the car later to Montero.
- Pepsi: Pepsi allegedly introduced their slogan into the Chinese market "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" translated into Chinese it read "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave".
- Coca-Cola: The name Coca-Cola rendered phonetically in Chinese can sound like the words for "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax". Before marketing in China, the company found a close phonetic equivalent, kekou kele (pinyin romanization), which roughly means "let your mouth rejoice". It was never marketed by the company using the other phrases, though individual merchants may have made such signs.In actuality, "bite the wax tadpole" in Mandarin Chinese is "Kēdǒu kěn là ."
- An urban legend holds that the Chevrolet Nova automobile sold poorly in Latin America, as "no va" means "won't go" in Spanish. In truth, the car sold well.
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avagoodweekend campers.

I'm heading to the bush in my Mitsubishi Wanker.
Mal