Ketchup With Your Underwear?

The Globe And Mail - October 3, 2003

Message to marketers: One man's calzones may be another man's underwear.

That is a lesson at least one purveyor of the cheese and meat-filled turnovers probably would like to have known before trying to market them to Spanish speakers. Calzone means underwear in Spanish. The poor translation was one example of botched advertising and branding efforts cited in a recent national survey of people who speak English as a second language.

Although often humorous, such blunders could be costing companies millions of dollars in lost sales from customers who are either perturbed or confused by the poor translations, the survey suggested.

Of the 513 people surveyed by New York-based translation service TransPerfect Translations Inc., 57 per cent have spotted advertising that is incorrectly translated from English into other languages.

Close to 50 per cent simply tune out the message of an ad if it is poorly translated. About 65 per cent said bad translations show a lack of caring about the consumer, while nearly one-third said it would hinder their loyalty to a product.

"It makes a lot of people feel negatively about a product," Said Liz Elting, cofounder of TransPerfect Translations .

"(Another) point that people made is that often the advertisements are unclear," she said.

Respondents were offended by some advertising slip-ups, such as the translation of "point" into Spanish as "puta," which means prostitute.

Coca-Cola Co. had what was probably among the earliest translation gaffes for a global brand. The beverage company ran into trouble in the 1920's when shopkeepers in China tried to come up with characters that sounded like Coke.

Depending on the dialect, the literal translations ranged from "bite the wax tadpole" to "female horse stuffed with wax."

The company rectified the problem by launching a contest to come up with the best translation. It settled on "happiness in the mouth."

—Dow Jones News Wires

About TransPerfect
With revenue of over $250 million, TransPerfect is the largest privately held language services provider in the world. From offices in 66 cities on 5 continents, TransPerfect offers a full range of services in over 100 languages to multinationals worldwide. With a global network of over 4,000 linguists and subject-area specialists, TransPerfect is the largest translation company to be fully ISO 9001:2008 and EN 15038:2006 certified. TransPerfect is headquartered in New York and has regional headquarters in London and Hong Kong. For more information, please visit our website at www.transperfect.com.