Tuesday, January 27, 2009

All Time Best Marketing Bloopers! David Lim, Auckland, New Zealand

Cracking an international market is a goal of most growing corporations. It shouldn't be that hard, yet even the big multi-nationals run into trouble because of language and cultural differences. For example...


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."

In Taiwan, the translation of the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" came out as "Pepsi
will bring your ancestors back from the dead."

Also in Chinese, the Kentucky Fried Chicken slogan "finger-lickin' good" came out as "eat your fingers off."

When General Motors introduced the Chevy Nova in South America, it was apparently unaware that "no va" means "it won't go." After the company figured out why it wasn't selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets to the Caribe.

Ford had a similar 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.

When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." However, the company mistakenly thought the spanish word "embarazar" meant embarrass. Instead the ads said that "It wont leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."

An American t-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the spanish market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead of the desired "I Saw the Pope" in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed "I Saw the Potato."

Chicken-man Frank Perdue's slogan, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken," got terribly mangled in another Spanish translation. A photo of Perdue with one of his birds appeared on billboards all over Mexico with a caption that explained "It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused."

Hunt-Wesson introduced its Big John products in French Canada as Gros Jos before finding out that the phrase, in slang, means "big breasts." In this case, however, the name problem did not have a noticeable effect on sales.

Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a notorious porno mag.

In Italy, a campaign for Schweppes Tonic Water translated the name into Schweppes Toilet Water.

Matsushita Electric is promoting a new Japanese PC targeted at the Internet. Panasonic has developed a complete Japanese Web browser, and to make the system "user-friendly", licensed the cartoon character "Woody Woodpecker" as the "Internet guide." Panasonic eventually planned on a world version of the product.

A huge marketing campaign was to have introduced the product in Japan last week. The day before the ads were to be released, Panasonic suddenly pulled back and delayed the product launch indefinitely.

The reason: the ads featured the slogan "Touch Woody - The Internet Pecker."

An American staff member at the internal product launch explained to the stunned and mbarrassed Japanese what "touch woody" and "pecker" meant in American slang.

Top Ten Mobile Phones in the World (David Lim, Auckland, New Zealand)

The following is the ranking of the Top Rated Mobile Phones by CNET's Editor. I personally use and own two of the Nokia's and Sony Ericsson.

Apple iPhone 3G
Apple's long-awaited upgrade with GPS and 3G

Samsung i8510
Smart phone with 8-megapixel camera

Nokia E71
Feature-packed smart phone with a Qwerty keypad

HTC Touch HD
Publish Post

Attractive smart phone with a large touchscreen

Sony Ericsson C905
8-megapixel camera phone with GPS and Wi-Fi

Sony Ericsson K800i
3G handset
with 3.2 megapixel camera

Nokia N95 8GB
Smart phone with built-in sat-nav, MP3 player, Wi-Fi, 5-megapixel camera and 8GB memory

BlackBerry Bold 9000
Feature-packed smartphone with a very sharp screen


Sony Ericsson K750i
Mobile phone with
almost 100MB of storage, 2-megapixel camera, radio and MP3 player

Nokia N95
All-in-one handset with built-in sat-nav, MP3 player, Wi-Fi and 5-megapixel camera

Sony Ericsson W760i
Feature-packed slider music phone

Monday, January 26, 2009

Chinese New Year Dinner at Highland Park, Auckland, New Zealand


We have a day off on Chinese New Year 2009 as it falls on Auckland Day (which is a public holiday too). A great time to catch with family and have a good rest.

Dinner was yummy with heaps of wonderful dishes and frutis!


Chinese New Year, 2009, Auckland, New Zealand


We celebrated our Chinese New Year at Highland Park, Auckland with our family. Kids have fun and received the traditional Red Packet. Dinner was great and we even have our own Chinese New Year Tree!