Travel with me #83 : 3 Bizarre Ad Campaigns That Translated Badly!!

1. Milk

Have you ever heard of “Got Milk”? If you have, you would know that it was one of the biggest advertisement campaigns in America from the American Dairy Association. The ads went viral within days, and this success helped the company export their campaign to countries all over the world. When “Got Milk” reached Spanish speaking countries, those two simple words transformed into three extremely personal words. The slogan reads “Are You Lactating” in Spanish which left women rather offended but gave the company a few laughs as well. Although both slogans are somewhat connected, the later is a little more personal than most women would like.

2. Clairol

As a company that deals in hair products, Clairol was doing very well in the Unites States of America. The reason being they offered quality products at reasonable prices. Because of such success, they introduced a curling iron in 2006 and named it the “Mist Stick” which did exceptionally well in the country. But, when they took the product to Germany, it didn’t do as well as they thought it would. Apparently “Mist” in German means “manure”. So, basically people were seeing the “manure stick” in cosmetic shops around the country. Who would want one of that and what would they really use it for? Hilarious when you picture it really.

3. KFC

Since we started this list in China, it only seems appropriate that we end it in the great country. In 1987, in Beijing, Kentucky Fried Chicken opened their first store in the country. They knew it would be an instant hit because of their reputation as “fast food kings” and along with their eye catching slogan, “finger licking good”, there was only one way and that was up. But what they didn’t realize was that they would make a huge mistake and translate the slogan into “We’ll Eat Your Fingers Off” in Chinese. I am sure the locals stayed away from KFC for a few weeks in fear of losing their digits. So, that’s what Colonel Sanders had in his secret herbs and spices? No wonder it was always kept a secret.

These ten brands believed that adding catch phrases to their products would get them added fame and in most cases, it did. The only issue was when translated in other languages, their advertisement campaigns came back to haunt them. All in all, some of the above mentioned brands did change their slogans to better suite all countries and some of them did not in order to draw in more attention. So, as you can see, even the big guns often goof up (sometimes in another language all together).

@vlogs5rap