The Japanese viewed this announcement as an invasion of privacy, inappropriate behavior, and in very bad taste.ġ0) Leona Helmsley should have done her homework before passing a promotion that compared her Helmsley Palace hotel in New York to the Taj Mahal, a mausoleum in India.ġ1) A golf ball manufacturing company packaged golf balls in packs of four for convenient purchase in Japan. The ad showed a woman bathing, her husband entering the bathroom and touching her. However, in Puerto Rico the name means “murderer” and it was not popular on the country’s dangerous highways.ĩ) Proctor & Gamble used a television commercial in Japan that was popular in Europe. In the end they renamed it “Honda Jazz”.Ĩ) American Motors tried to market its new car, the Matador, based on the image of courage and strength. genitalia in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. If they had taken the time to conduct cross-cultural market research, they might have discovered that “fitta” was an old word used in the language. He received calls from numerous Punjabi speakers telling them that “bundh” sounded like the Punjabi word for “ass.”ħ) Honda introduced their new car “Fitta” to the Nordic countries in 2001. The firm received complaints from many organizations and individuals for being the name of the gas used by the Nazi regime to murder millions of Jews in concentration camps.Ħ) Sharwoods, a UK food manufacturer, spent £ 6 million on a campaign to launch their new ‘Bundh’ sauces. In Spanish it translates as “drug trafficker”.ĥ) In 2002, Umbro, the UK sports manufacturer, had to retire their new trainers (shoes) called Zyklon. Of course, to British ears this sounds too close to “Wankers”, which would not really give a very positive image to any company.Ĥ) The “Traficante” and the Italian mineral water had a great reception in the underworld of Spain.
Why? The new product advertisements featured the following tagline: “Touch Woody – The Internet Pecker.” The company only realized its cross-cultural error when an embarrassed American explained how “touch Woody’s penis” could be interpreted!Ģ) Swedish furniture giant IKEA somehow agreed on the name “FARTFULL” for one of its new desks.ģ) In the late 1970s, Wang, the American computer company could not understand why its British branches were refusing to use its latest slogan “Wang Cares”.
The day before the huge marketing campaign, Panasonic realized its mistake and took it offline. Panasonic created the new web browser and was licensed to use the cartoon character Woody Woodpecker as an interactive guide to the Internet.
#Old woody woodpecker cartoon Pc
Here are the top 20 marketing and communications mistakes from around the world.ġ) The Japanese company Matsushita Electric was promoting a new Japanese PC for Internet users. For any company or business running a marketing campaign abroad, you need to take linguistic and cultural variations seriously. While they are sometimes to be embarrassed, the examples of global marketing mistakes are a useful means of appreciating that we are not all the same.
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