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What are the worst advertising failures you know?

As an example, there was a particular brand of washing powder that Unilever wanted to sell into the Middle East. Not wishing to risk any cultural faux pas, the advertising company came up with a simple campaign. A picture of a dirty shirt, a picture of the washing powder, and then a picture of a clean shirt. They failed to take into account that people in the Middle East read from right to left.

There are numerous example of product names that have unfortunate meanings in foreign languages, like the Vauxhall Nova. A nice little car in its day, but in Spanish no va means doesn’t go (?).

Enjoy these rather more hilarious examples :
http://listverse.com/2008/01/31/another-20-unfortunate-product-names/

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 13th, 2011 at 4:50 pm and is filed under advertising. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

2 Responses to “What are the worst advertising failures you know?”

  1. Those pop-up ads for screen savers. Does anyone ever buy those things?
    References :

  2. There are numerous example of product names that have unfortunate meanings in foreign languages, like the Vauxhall Nova. A nice little car in its day, but in Spanish no va means doesn’t go (?).

    Enjoy these rather more hilarious examples :
    http://listverse.com/2008/01/31/another-20-unfortunate-product-names/
    References :

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