What do you think the Reading is about?
If advertisers think that they can just translate an ad and use it in another country, they,ll often be wrong. And if they don’t take care about their use of a foreign language, the adverisers will look foolisih Here is a collection of real-life mistakes: ads that went wrong!
Nike had a TV commercial filmed in Kenya with local tribes people. The camera closes in on one man who speaks in native Maa. As he speaks, the Nike slogan “Juse do it”. Appears on the screen. The Kenyan is really saying, “I don,t want these. Give.me the big shoes.” Nike’s executives thought that nobody in the U.S. would understand what was saying. Wrong! Some people DID notice.
In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan “ Come alive with pepsi generation.” Came out as “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead.” The idiom come aliue in English actually means have more energy and so have more fun.
In Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan “finger-lickin’ good” came out as “Eat your fingers off.” Finger lickin’ good suggests that the food is so goodthat when you finish eating it, you want to get a final taste of it licking your fingers.
An African airline once had the slogan, “Flies all over Africa.”
AMC launched a new car caiied matador. In Spain’ matador means bullfighte but in Latin America, it means hired killer.
An American T-shirt maker printed shirts in Spanish to promote the pope’s visit to Miami. Instead of “I saw the Pope” (el Papa), the shirts read “ I saw the potato” (la papa).
Do you knw any other bad advertising slogans?