Failed Ad Campaigns

[loinburger]

The "Yow, Giant Spider" commercial tops all, but unfortunately I can't find it anywhere in Google. It was this commercial they ran about ten-odd years ago for some Hot Wheels toys or some other kind of miniature car toy, where these kids are playing some incomprehensible game with the toys. The dialogue (with corresponding shots of these little toy cars being molested by giant spiders or evil bulldozers or human hands or whatever) went something like:

Kid1: "Yow, giant spider!"
Kid2: "Almost got the axe!"
Kid1: "What next?"
Kid2: "Evil bulldozer on the volcano!"
Kid1: "Eat lava, dude!"

At which point the camera cut to a close-up of Kid2 (or maybe Kid1), who lets out a great big "Yeah!"

The truly bizarre thing about the ad is that rather than have Kid1 and Kid2 actually speak their own lines, they apparently had a fortysomething man pretend to speak like a 12-year-old kid and dubbed his voice over the commercial, so that Kid1's voice was indistinguishable from Kid2's, and so that they both sounded like they were a 40-year-old man trying to sound like a 12-year-old kid.

Eventually they changed the ad slightly, so that the kid saying "Yeah!" at the end actually spoke his line. They also reshot the close-up of his face, so he didn't look quite so demonic. The 40-year-old man's voice was still dubbed over the rest of the ad, though.

[Ming]

Some of the worst campaigns can usually be found when companies try to translate their ads to international markets...

Some examples I found on a web site while looking up one of my favorite mistakes, the Chevy Nova campaign in South America

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.

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. Surprisingly enough it didn't sell too well. 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."

The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem - Feeling Free," got translated in the Japanese market into "When smoking Salem, you feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty."

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 won't leak in your pocket and make you pregnant."

Chicken-man Frank Perdue's slogan, "It takes a tough man to make a tender chicken," got awfully translated in Mexico. 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."

[MRT144]

that is a bad ad campaign

[gunkulator]

"Can you hear me now? Good!"

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Ming
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. Surprisingly enough it didn't sell too well. 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."

This has to be an urban legend (no relations ). I don't have the faintest which four Chinese characters with those sounds translate into those phrases.

[gunkulator]

Apologies to this sites owners but:

"The Amazing X10 Cam. Thousands of legitimate uses."

"Congratulations, you are the 3459867298670989267 visitor to this site ...."

"Punch the Monkey"

"Make your ***** larger"

"Free Viagra over the internet"

"Young hot teens are waiting for you..."

[Ming]

I will admit UR that the coke example is the only one I hadn't heard before. The rest I've seen in many different "Case history" lectures on bad translations in advertising...

And JohnT... Our New York office was responsible for the Herb campaign... The only thing I can say in their defense is that the client was stupid enough to sign of on it.

Needless to say, they lost the account shortly there after

[Wtiberon]

I laaaaaaaaaaaaughed till I stopped

[JohnT]

Oh, MAN!!!!

My apologies, Ming.

[MRT144]

Ming, i cant believe a company you worked for had a hand in it.

[Ming]

Originally posted by JohnT
Oh, MAN!!!!

My apologies, Ming.

No apologies needed JT... Back in the heartland, we laughed our brains out when they previewed the creative for us. Somebody wanted to set up a pool for how long it would take them to lose the account after the first spot aired... Little did we know at the time how appropriate that would have been

[rah]

Originally posted by gunkulator
"Can you hear me now? Good!"

Yes, annoying as heck.

[JohnT]

"Works" for, MRT. Ming implies that he is still employed by them.

[MRT144]

even worse

[Ming]

Originally posted by MRT144
Ming, i cant believe a company you worked for had a hand in it.

Nobody in the Chicago office could believe it either

Needless to say, that campaign never made it on any of the creative reels we use to pitch new clients