Salem Jokes / Recent Jokes

Below are fine examples of what happens when marketing translations fail to reach a foreign country in an understandable way. Coors put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it was read as "Suffer from diarrhea." Clairol introduced the "Mist Stick," a curling iron, into German only to find out that "mist" is slang for manure. Not too many people had use for the "manure stick". Scandinavian vacuum manufacturer Electrolux used the following in an American campaign: Nothing sucks like an Electrolux. The American slogan for Salem cigarettes, "Salem-Feeling Free", was translated into the Japanese market as "When smoking Salem, you will feel so refreshed that your mind seems to be free and empty." When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same packaging as in the US, with the beautiful baby on the label. Later they learned that in Africa, companies routinely put pictures on the label of more...

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, observe the following examples below.

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' more...

What to say to a telemarketer! One of the things that has always bugged me (and I'm sure it has most of you, too) is to sit down to dinner only to be interrupted by a phone call from a telemarketer. I decided, on one such occasion, to try to be as irritating to them as they were to me. The call was from AT&T, and it went something like this: Me: HelloAT&T: Hello, this is AT&T... Me: Is this AT&T? AT&T: Yes, this is AT&T... Me: This is AT&T? AT&T: Yes. This is AT&T... Me: Is this AT&T? AT&T: YES! This is AT&T. May I speak to Mr. Salem please? Me: May I ask who is calling? AT&T: This is AT&T. Me: OK, hold on. At this point, I put the phone down for a solid 5 minutes thinking that, surely, this person would have hung up the phone. I ate my salad. Much to my surprise, when I picked up the receiver, she was still waiting. Me: Hello? AT&T: Is this Mr. Salem? Me: May I ask who is calling please? AT&T: Yes, this is AT&T... Me: Is this AT&T? AT&T: Yes, this is AT&T... Me: This is AT&T? AT&T: more...

What to say to a telemarketer! One of the things that has always bugged me (and I`m sure it has most of you, too) is to sit down to dinner only to be interrupted by a phone call from a telemarketer. I decided, on one such occasion, to try to be as irritating to them as they were to me. The call was from AT & T, and it went something like this:

Me: Hello
AT & T: Hello, this is AT & T....
Me: Is this AT & T?
AT & T: Yes, this is AT & T....
Me: This is AT & T?
AT & T: Yes. This is AT & T....
Me: Is this AT & T?
AT & T: YES! This is AT & T. May I speak to Mr. Salem please?
Me: May I ask who is calling?
AT & T: This is AT & T.
Me: OK, hold on.
At this point, I put the phone down for a solid 5 minutes thinking that, surely, this person would have hung up the phone. I ate my salad. Much to my surprise, when I picked up the receiver, she was still waiting.
Me: more...

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, observe the following examples below. 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 more...