‘Marketing Translation’ Archives
Camay soap in Japan
Procter & Gamble, like many other international corporations, learned U.S. portrayals of women in advertising are not always socially acceptable in other countries. In her book, “Soap Opera: The Inside Story of Procter & Gamble,” author Alecia Swasy relates the result of one misguided soap commercial. “A Camay campaign pitched the [...]
Cultural Perception of Gender May Influence Localization
Sometimes cultural perception of gender relations may influence how marketing and advertising is localized for other markets. See several examples in the article "Some international ads are perceived as sexist due to different cultural norms," by Globalization Group vice president Adam Wooten. Examples include a TV commercial that seemed harmless [...]
Some international ads are perceived as sexist due to different cultural norms
Procter & Gamble, like many other international corporations, learned U.S. portrayals of women in advertising are not always socially acceptable in other countries. In her book, “Soap Opera: The Inside Story of Procter & Gamble,” author Alecia Swasy relates the result of one misguided soap commercial. “A Camay campaign pitched the [...]
Google Translate has great uses, disastrous misuses
Google Translate and other free online translation tools can be great for instant, informal translation. When expectations are properly set, particularly for low-value text, unedited machine translation can be quite useful. However, when a user overestimates machine translation capabilities, the results can be confusing at best. When one online [...]
Mistranslation as a Virtue?
Mistranslation can cause physical or financial harm, as illustrated by many anecdotes on this blog. However, we must admit that mistranslation will - in extremely rare instances - be perceived as a virtue by some. For example, some U.S. restaurant patrons like to see poorly translated menus in ethnic restaurants because they then assume the [...]
“Safe” and “Comfortable” Flight
Misuse of punctuation - even small quotation marks - can quickly change the meaning of a sentence. For example, how reassuring is the following invitation from Japan Airlines? Please enjoy our "safe" and "comfortable" flight Read more airline-related translation bloopers in the article "'Airline pulp' and bad translations that can crash a [...]
International symbol, icon blunders can be avoided
Some of my European colleagues still remember when the old Macintosh operating system of the 1980s used a trash icon that Apple’s European users confused for a postal box. Why was the icon confusing? People across the globe have different cultural ideas and assumptions about what things are supposed to look like. In other countries, trash cans [...]
Airline Pulp
"Southern China Airways once distributed a snack package with the mysterious-sounding label 'Airline Pulp' and no other description. Yum – sounds tasty! This mistranslated label will probably not get the airline nominated for any airline food awards..." Read more airline-related translation bloopers in the article "'Airline pulp' and bad [...]
‘Airline pulp’ and bad translations that can crash a plane
Southern China Airways once distributed a snack package with the mysterious-sounding label “Airline Pulp” and no other description. Yum – sounds tasty! This mistranslated label will probably not get the airline nominated for any airline food awards, but it could be worse. Some in-flight mistranslations will make you laugh, but others will [...]
Basketball Bloopers Lost in Translation
Products and apparel for basketball fans have been the victims of broken English translations. This is not the only sport to see translation blunders - baseball, soccer, and just about every other sport have seen similarly humorous mistranslations - but here are a few from the world of basketball. One UNLV Runnin' Rebels T-shirt (obviously [...]
