Top Ten Biggest International Marketing Mistakes of All Time

1. When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to have read, "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." Instead, the firm thought that the word "embarazar" (to impregnate) meant to embarrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant

2. In Spain, when Coors Brewing firm put its slogan, "Turn it loose" into Spanish; it was read as "Suffer from diarrhea".

Ballpoint Pen

3. When Braniff International Airways translated a slogan touting its upholstery, "Fly in leather", it came out in Spanish as "Fly naked".

4. When Pepsi started marketing its products in China a few years back, they translated their slogan, "Pepsi Brings You Back to Life" pretty literally. The slogan in Chinese certainly meant, "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Grave."

5. Chicken magnate Frank Perdue's line, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken," sounds much more tantalizing in Spanish: "It takes a sexually stimulated man to make a chicken affectionate."

6. Scandinavian vacuum maker Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux".

7. A hair products company, Clairol, introduced the "Mist Stick", a curling iron, into Germany only to find out that mist is slang for manure. Not too many habitancy had use for the manure stick.

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

9. PepsiCola lost it dominant market share to Coke in South East Asia when Pepsi changed the color of its vending machines and coolers from deep "Regal" blue to light "Ice" blue as Light blue is linked with death and mourning in Se Asia.

10. We can't forget Chevrolet's exertion to get underway the Nova -- Spanish translation, "Doesn't Go" -- in Mexico (turns out this one appears to be an urban legend and cannot be verified). Many sources on the internet enunciate this is untrue.

Top Ten Biggest International Marketing Mistakes of All Time