When Coca-Cola first shipped to China, they named the product something that   
when pronounced sounded like "Coca-Cola."  The only problem was that the       
characters used meant "Bite the wax tadpole."  They later changed to a set of  
characters that mean "Happiness in the mouth."
 
When Braniff translated a slogan touting its upholstery, "Fly in leather," it  
came out in Spanish as "Fly naked."
 
Coors put its sloga, "Turn it loose," into Spanish, where it was read as       
"Suffer from diarrhea."
 
Chicken magnate Frank Perdue's line, "It takes a tough man to make a tender    
chicken," sounds much more interesting in Spanish: "It takes a sexually        
stimulated man to make a chicken affectionate."
 
When Vicks first introduced it's cough drops on the german market, they were   
chagrined to learn that the german pronunciation of "v" is f --- which in      
german is the gutteral equivalent of "sexual penetration."

Ford had a similar problem in Brazil when the Pinto flopped.  The company
found out that Pinto was Brazilian slang for "tiny male genitals".  Ford
pried all the nameplates off and substituted Corcel, which means horse.

When Parker Pen marketed a ballpoint pen in Mexico, its ads were supposed
to say "It won't leak in your pocket and embarrass you." However, the
company's mistakenly thought the spanish word "embarazar" meant embarrass.
Instead the ads said that "It wont leak in your pocket and make you
pregnant."

An American T-shirt maker in Miami printed shirts for the spanish market
which promoted the Pope's visit.  Instead of the desired "I Saw the Pope"
in Spanish, the shirts proclaimed "I Saw the Potato."

Not to be outdone, Puffs tissues tried later to introduce its product, only to 
learn that "Puff" in german is a colloquial term for a whorehouse.  The English
weren't too fond of the name either, as it's a highly derogatory term for a    
non-heterosexual.
 
Chicken-man Frank Perdue's slogan, "It takes a tough man to make a tender
chicken," got terribly mangled in another Spanish translation. A photo of
Perdue with one of his birds appeared on billboards all over Mexico with a
caption that explained "It takes a hard man to make a chicken aroused."

Hunt-Wesson introduced its Big John products in French Canada as Gros Jos
before finding out that the phrase, in slang, means "big breasts." In this
case, however, the name problem did not have a noticeable effect on sales.

The Chevy Nova never sold well in Spanish speaking countries.  "No va" means   
"it doesn't go" in Spanish.
 
Colgate introduced a toothpaste in France called Cue, the name of a
notorious porno mag.

When Gerber first started selling baby food in Africa, they used the same      
packaging as here in the USA - with the ute baby on the label.  Later they     
found out that in Africa that companies routinely put pictures of the label of 
what's inside since more people can't read.
 
When Pepsi started marketing its products in China a few years back, the       
translated their slogan, "Pepsi Brings you Back to Life" pretty literally.  The
slogan in Chinese really meant, "Pepsi Brings Your Ancestors Back from the     
Grave."
 
A hair products company, Clairol, introduced the "Mist Stick", a curling iron, 
into Germany to find out that mist is slang for manure.  Not too many people   
had use for the manure stick.