Sometimes advertisers get it all wrong. Here are some funny
examples of advertising campaigns that ended up being
entirely inappropriate.

1. Coors put its slogan, "Turn it loose," into Spanish,
where it was read  as "Suffer from diarrhea".

2. 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 a  use for the "manure
stick".

3. An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for
the Spanish  market which promoted the Pope's visit. Instead
of "I saw the Pope"  (el Papa), the shirts read "I saw the
potato" (la papa).

4. Pepsi's "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation"
translated into "Pepsi  brings your ancestors back from the
grave", in Chinese.

5. When Gerber started selling baby food in Africa, they
used the same  packaging as in the US, with the beautiful
Caucasian baby on the  label. Later they learned that in
Africa, companies routinely put  pictures on the label of
what's inside, since most people can't read.

6. Frank Perdue's chicken slogan, "it takes a strong man to
make a tender  chicken" was translated into Spanish as "it
takes an aroused man to  make a chicken affectionate".

7. The Coca-Cola name in China was first read as
"Ke-kou-ke-la", meaning  "Bite the wax tadpole" or "female
horse stuffed with wax", depending  on the dialect. Coke
then researched 40,000 characters to find a  phonetic
equivalent "ko-kou-ko-le", translating into "happiness in
the  mouth".

8. When Parker Pen marketed a ball-point pen in Mexico, its
ads were  supposed to have read, "it won't leak in your
pocket and embarrass  you". Instead, the company thought
that the word  "embarazar" (to  impregnate) meant to
embarrass, so the ad read: "It won't leak in your  pocket
and make you pregnant". OOPS!