Posts Tagged ‘marketing’
Wide Boiled Aircraft
A Russian airline once advertised “wide boiled aircraft for your comfort.” Read more airline-related translation bloopers in the article "'Airline pulp' and bad translations that can crash a plane," by Globalization Group vice president Adam Wooten.
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 [...]
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 [...]
Preventing Mistranslation is Easier than Retracting Translation Blunders
Benjamin Franklin said, "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." This is true in translation. As illustrated when a magazine ironically added Google mistranslations to an article about translation quality in bold, red print, it is easier to prevent mistranslations than it is to retract mistranslations and fully recover from [...]
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 [...]
The wrong marketing picture can be a thousand words lost in translation
Starbucks recently released its new logo, which features a green image of its well-known siren. Noticeably absent from the image is any text mentioning the words Starbucks or coffee. International business experts praised this move as a way to eliminate the need for logo translation. In this case, a single, almost universally understood image [...]
