Translations can be tricky. No matter how careful you are, if you are not employing professional, experienced and reliable translators to get the work done you might end up in a pool of errors. However, sometimes blunders do happen even by experts. Here are three examples of some of the biggest gaffes in transcreation that rib tickled the audience and abashed the marketers:
- One of the biggest bloopers in transcreation appeared when the renowned Parker company introduced a new ballpoint pen in Mexico. The original advertisement for the brilliant pen read “It won’t leak in your pocket and embarrass you.” However, while translating this into Spanish for the Mexican audience, the translators misconstrued “embarazar” for “embarrass” that actually means to impregnate.
- Another example of a huge transcreation blunder is when Pepsi was promoting its product in China. A creative bunch of individuals had come up with the slogan “Pepsi brings you back to life” when this was translated into Chinese, it turned out to be “Pepsi brings your ancestors back from grave”. Now this was one of the most hilarious errors that could be made by a major player like Pepsi.
- A major slip occurred by Braniff International Airways when it translated a slogan for its upholstery that read “fly in leather” which when translated into Spanish read “fly naked”.
Certified Translation Services is a renowned translation agency in London that offers high quality translations in over 100 global languages. The translation company specializes in document translation, website localization, desktop publishing, subtitling, multilingual copywriting, voiceover, interpreting and transcription services.