‘Winners in Translation’ Archives
Coca-Cola Preserves Brand Strength in China
Coca-Cola thought ahead to preserve brand strength in China, as related in article, "Lost in Translation: Preserving Brand Strength in Foreign Markets" by Globalization Group vice president Adam Wooten in the February issue of Utah Business Magazine. Marketing managers often laughingly relate how Coca-Cola allegedly committed a huge blunder when [...]
Kodak Global Brand Name Check
In sharp contrast with many brands listed in the article "Some brand names don't translate well," Kodak exemplifies the benefits of linguistic research in brand name development. According to the book Blunders in International Business by David A. Ricks, a team chose the name Kodak after it determined that the word had no negative meanings or [...]
P&G’s International Brand Check
"Proctor and Gamble likely understood the benefits of a single global brand nearly 70 years ago when it considered launching a new soap named "Dreck" in the United States. According to the book New Products Management by Charles Crawford, shortly before the company introduced the soap to U.S. consumers, it discovered "Dreck" sounded like German [...]
Samsung Acts Fast to Avoid Misunderstanding about Translation
The blogosphere has been buzzing this month about the Romanian version of the soon-to-be released Samsung Galaxy Tab, a product to compete with Apple's iPad. Apparently, the "home" icon on the product was translated as "Porn." Bloggers have had a good laugh about the potential damage this might cause, but this is not a mistranslation. "Porn." [...]
International Brand Checks Save Brand Names
International brand checks can help to prevent disastrous international blunders. The following example from the article "Prevent International Blunders" shows an example of one company that does this correctly. ...Rolls-Royce is a company that proactively works to prevent these types of blunders. Just before Rolls-Royce launched the Silver [...]
Community Translation for Health Care
Google has announced the launch of a community translation project for health care called "Health Speaks." The program is seeking volunteers to translate high quality health articles into many languages, starting with Arabic, Hindi, and Swahili. For the first 60 days, (Google) will donate 3 cents (US) for each English word translated to the [...]
Video Game Localization Improves Revenue 15X
A video game publisher recently told the Brazilian newspaper O Globo that it sees 15 times more revenue from a video game localized in Portuguese than it does for a video game left in English. How much of a return on investment do you see from your localization? Read the Portuguese article in O Globo or get the gist of it from an English [...]
