In the office of a Roman doctor : Specialist in women and other diseases
In a Copenhagen airline ticket office: We take your bags and send them in all directions
In a Paris hotel elevator: Please leave your values at the front desk.
The Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American ad campaign: "Nothing sucks like an Electrolux."
The Chevrolet Nova sold less well in Latin America than Chevrolet's marketeers had forecast. It was then brought to the company's attention that in Spanish, "No va" means "doesn't go".
The name Coca-Cola in China was first rendered as ke-kou-ke-la. Unfortunately, the Coke company did not discover until after thousands of signs had been printed that the phrase means "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax" depending on the dialect. Coke then researched 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, "ko-kou-ko-le", which can be loosely translated as "happiness in the mouth."
Ford had a problem 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.
In Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."
In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into Schweppes Toilet Water.
When Gerber first started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as here in the USA - with the cute baby on the label. Later they found out that in Africa companies routinely put pictures on the label of what's inside since most people can't read.
From the Land of the Rising Sun: On a medicine bottle: "Adults: 1 tablet 3 times a day until passing away"
