Lost in Translation

Picking a name for your product is a tricky business, just ask these companies:

Running a bit Latte   

Latte means milk in Italy. In English, Latte is a coffee-drink. Many folks like to head to Mugg & Bean, Vida E or other coffee shops to take early morning lattebreaks...

In Germany, Latte is a well known word for an erection. So, "morning latte" is when you wake up in the morning with an erection! The word "break" means "destroy", so taking that "morning latte break" is destroying that erection. I'll leave the details to your imagination, as well as all the puns on how you take your steaming hot drink.

Coca-Cola Fresca

In Mexico, Fresca is a term for Lesbian. Yes, there were some jokes, but sales weren't hurt by this association, I think it might even have helped sales a little.   

Colgate Cue

Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue.  Unfortunately Cue is also the the name of a notorious porno mag. 

Car manufacturers seem particularly stupid, at risk...

Ford's Pinto didn't do well in Brazil. Pinto is Brazilian slang for "male genitals". Ford renamed the car the Corcel, which means horse or steed. 

General Motors made a car named "Opel Ascona". This model sold poorly in Galicia, the northwestern region of Spain. In the galician and also portuguese languages, the term is similar to the term for female genitalia.  (Do you feel like a "female genitalia" while driving a Ford?)  

Volkswagen named the sedan version of Golf the Jetta. However, the letter "J" doesn't exist in the Italian alphabet, so Jetta is pronounced "Ietta", which means Misfortune... 

Honda introduced their new car "Fitta" in the Nordic countries in 2001, only to find out that "fitta" is an old word, currently used in vulgar language to refer to a woman's genitals in Swedish, Norwegian and Danish. It was renamed to "Honda Jazz". 

When General Motors introduced the Chevrolet Nova in South America, it was apparently unaware that "no va" means "it won't go". After the company figured out why it wasn't selling any cars, it renamed the car in its Spanish markets to the Caribe. 

My 2 favourite of all...

LOCUM

Locum is a Swedish company. In 1991, they sent Xmas Cards to all of their customers. They thought it would be a good idea give their logo a little holiday spirit, by substituting a little heart for the letter "o". For some reason, they also used all lowercase letters. The lowercase "L" can be easily seen and read to be an "i", and the locum logo looked like one of those "I heart ..." bumper stickers, with an nice surprise message for the reader.  (As long as your mom doesn't work at LOCUM it is funny) 

Milk

The Dairy Association's huge success with the campaign "Got Milk?" prompted them to expand advertising to Mexico. It was soon brought to their attention the Spanish slogan translation read "Are you lactating?"

Think twice, no three times before you name your product.