There’s a reason why American companies can’t seem to grasp Asian markets. Why?
Culture.
Startups and established companies need to understand that simply throwing a branch down in a random Asian country is probably going to result in an embarrassing and costly mistake. The Asian markets vary too much in complexity and culture from the United States or Europe to fool hardily enter hoping for the best.
One of the biggest mistakes a foreign startup can make is neglecting to check the Chinese translation of their brand or slogan. Even some of the world’s most popular brands make the International mistake:
Bing!
Pronunciation: Bing!
Translation: Disease and Malaria!
Pronunciation: Guge
Translation: Millet song (Old McDonald doesn’t inspire confidence)
Translation: You must die. (Unequivocally)
Coke-Cola
Pronunciation: Ke-ke-ken-la
Translation: Female horse stuffed with wax
Pepsi:
What they meant: Pepsi Brings you Back to Life
What they actually said: Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from the Grave
Kentucky Fried Chicken
What they meant: Finger lickin’ good
What they actually said: Eat your fingers off
View Comments (2)
Not sure about some of your translations, I thought coke was, kouke koule, which I think is something like smiley happy drink, not sure about the ones for facebook and pepsi, and of course bing could also be sick as in ill or not well, or maybe even no or don't as in, bing bushi, is that not correct?
I remembered coke entered the market without a translation of its name so the chinese market had fun making up different meanings for coke because it was so easy to create weird mixes of interpretations of it's name. Â everyone was just having a little fun at coke's expense.
coke's current interpretation is actually one of the best chinese brand translations in the market, so they took a really good lesson from their mistakes
for bing, bu-shi means "no" and the bing doesn't really have a meaning in the phrase. Â Its like adding the connotation of "not really." Â Bing in itself means illness, disease and yadda yadda.
facebook is my fav. Â you could honestly ask any native speaker to sound out the name and you'll get a good cheer =)