The effects of translating are like a universe in constant expansion, it increasingly becomes more relevant in every sector because of international markets. For this reason, it should be expected that translation has started to open paths in new directions: a task that once consisted of converting specific textual information from one language to another has become a task intended to reproduce semantic and illocutionary content in a specific communicative context. However, this does not always happen. Sometimes we do not need a direct transfer, but rather we need an assessment by professionals with knowledge about a certain culture (one of the essential requirements in translation). This is the case, for example, in companies who want to introduce a product and its corresponding brand into a foreign market.
Since we know that the universe does not revolve around us, we have had to learn that we are a part of different interconnected systems, making it irresponsible to let ourselves think that our way of understanding the world applies to every civilization and every other way of thinking out there. This is why this philosophy should be considered when planning how to market a brand on an international level. This does not only affect the name of a product, but also the values of a company and all the associations linked to it. Do we really want to damage our brand image because we did not bother getting to know our foreign clients? This is where the concept of “localization” comes into play, which refers to adapting an element to the target culture.
There are many examples of entertaining mistakes related to brands that were not properly localized or situations when not enough research was done. Here we have compiled a small selection of brands who have suffered from adaptation (or not) for different reasons.
To start, we will share some examples of brands who had to overcome the fact that their brand name was already patented or registered in some manner in another country. This happened to the Mexican beer Corona because in Spain the Catalan group Torres had already sold wine with that name, forcing them to change the beer to Coronita. This ended in 2016, making the internationalization of their product consistent. Another story worth mentioning is what we now know as Dunkin’, but was once called Dunkin’ Donuts. The latter name apparently competed with the “donut” sold by the company Panrico in Spain, forcing the American company to adopt the name Dunkin’ Coffee, also forcing them to redecorate their locations. A curious example is the Disney movie Moana, whose title was a brand already registered by the cosmetics company Casa Margot. The original name of the protagonist came from the Maori word for “ocean” or “deep sea”, while the name in the Spanish version, Vaiana, made an allusion to the Tahitian word for “water from the deep”. However, this is not the most interesting part of this anecdote. In Italy, Moana was also already taken since it was the name of an actress famous from adult movies, Moana Pozzi. This caused problems if the mostly juvenile audience wanted to search the Internet for information on the movie using that word, since radically different movies would come up instead. This caused Disney to give it an entirely different name in the region, Oceania.
Curious enough, in this field, problems in localization usually translate into errors related to obscene and ridiculous language or they contain double entendres. Automotive companies know this well, as reported in this article. For example, the Mitsubishi pajero is a famous example of a mistake due to the name’s masturbatory connotations in Spanish, causing the name to be changed to Montero. Nevertheless, the automobile industry has a lot of stories to tell. In 1976, in the Auto Show of Turin, Ford presented a model called the Ford Corrida, which had a futuristic appearance that tried to reflect the boldness of bullfighting, while being unaware of the second more vulgar meaning of the word referring to ejaculation. There are other brands who manage to bring down their own reputation with just a few words, such as the case with the FIAT Marea. They wanted to evoke the tides and sea but failed to realize that the word “marea” is more frequently used to refer to getting dizzy and sick to one’s stomach in Spanish. If we have learned anything from driving through tight, hairpin curves, getting dizzy is the last mental association we want in the minds of our consumers, meaning that the product name could have been localized better. They never seem to learn, and the Spanish market still receives brand names with dubious localizations, such as the Volkswagen Jetta (jeta, or someone who is shameless), Nissan Moco (booger), Mazda Laputa (prostitute), Kia Borrego (an idiot), Audi Q3 (cutrez, or something cheap) or Lancia Marica (a homosexual slur). Outside of Spain, we can find examples such as the Ford Pinto (which in Portuguese refers to a penis), the Toyota MR-2 (which in French is read similar to merde, or shit) or the SEAT Málaga, which in Greece had to be sold as the SEAT Gredos, since μαλάκας [malákas] is an insult relating to masturbation.
In fact, phonetic appearance and pronunciation are another area of interest when localizing brands. One illustrative example is the French company Danone, who realized that their English-speaking customers did not pronounce the name as it was pronounced in French, but rather saw the word one inside the name and pronounced it as such. As a result, the company decided to use the name Dannon in the US.
Do you know any other cases like this or other linguistic combinations?
Picture reference:
https://www.setwallpapers.com/category/space-wallpapers/927/space-man-cool-phone-wallpaper
