Brand blunder

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Brand blunder refers to the goof ups associated with the branding of a product, especially a new product in a new market. There could be many reasons for such slips. For example, the lack of understanding of the language, culture, consumer attitude etc.

There are numerous examples of brand blunders in the marketing history; there are also numerous urban legends surrounding brand blunders, where there is little evidence of an actual blunder.

[edit] True cases

  • Honda : In 2001, Honda intended to release an automobile known as the Fit in Asian markets as the Honda Fitta on the European market. However, in Swedish and Norwegian, fitta is a crude reference to female genitalia, and the vehicle was rebranded Honda Jazz.
  • McDonald's : In January 2005, McDonald's published banners proclaiming Double cheeseburger? I'd Hit It. In this obvious blunder, the copywriters mistook the strictly sexual slang expression for a term of general appraisal.

[edit] Urban legends

Urban legends about brand blunders are popular, because they use familiar urban legend motifs such as the incompetent corporation or the ignorant foreigner. Often the reality is far less dramatic, and the stories, which are even retold in marketing textbooks, are rarely backed up by researched data about sales.

  • Pepsi: Pepsi allegedly introduced their slogan into the Chinese market "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" translated into Chinese it read "Pepsi brings your ancestors back from the grave". [3].
  • Coca-Cola: The name Coca-Cola rendered phonetically in Chinese can sound like the words for "bite the wax tadpole" or "female horse stuffed with wax". Before marketing in China, the company researched nearly 40,000 Chinese characters and found a close phonetic equivalent, "ke-kou-ke-le," which means "happiness in the mouth." It was never marketed by the company using the other phrases, though individual merchants may have made such signs. [4]

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