5d (edited) • General discussion
Real life costly disasters through mistranslations
Still true in 2026 with advanced AI, beware!
This is why adapting properly marketing copy saves time and resources.
Adapting copy = Localization
Copy that is relevant and culturally aligned with the target audience.
Believe me, AI still makes unwanted mistakes when not properly reviewed and proofread by a native expert.
The solution:
The "human in the loop".
Draft with AI + human review and proofreading. Test and tweak!
If A/B testing is so key in monolingual situations, how much more when adapting to another language.
You DON'T want these mistakes to happen to your business.
It can be avoided!
And it is worth it!
Hispanics accounted for 63% of all U.S. population growth over the last five years.
$4+ trillion dollars of purchasing power in the U.S. alone. (B2C)
14% of businesses in the US are Latino owned. (B2B)
... and then all of Latin America.
If any fellow Skooler would like a review of content in Spanish, happy to take a quick look.
A few international examples of costly mistranslations.
- The HSBC Bank slogan was translated from “Assume Nothing” to “Do Nothing”. Since then, the company spent millions of dollars in an attempt to rebrand itself.
- Pepsi: Their slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" fue interpretado erróneamente como "Pepsi resucita a tus antepasados de la tumba", one the famous marketing failures.
- Airline: translated a slogan "Fly in Leather" as "Vuela en cuero". My fellow Latin Americans know that this can mean "fly naked".
- Clairol (1986): The brand launched its curler "Mist Stick" in Germany without considering that "mist" is slang for manure, which made it difficult to sell a product that promised "manure".
- Parker Pen (1971): When launching pens in Mexico, a mistranslation led consumers to believe the pen would prevent unwanted pregnancies ("it won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you" was confused with "embarazar" - literally, getting pregnant).
- Coors: "Turn it Loose" translated to "Suffer from diarrhea."
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Real life costly disasters through mistranslations
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