Sponsor Impact report , What s in a name?? Oil of Ulay became Olay. Marathon turned into Snickers. Opal Fruits changed into Starburst. Global corporations love to create uniformity in their brand names and marketing campaigns, usually to reduce costs. The problem is, they sometimes translate rather unfortunately. Here are a few from the marketing archives which perhaps might have been avoided with some good local research. l Clairol had a curling iron called Mist Stick. Unfortunately, in German, mist is slang for manure. Vicks had a problem in the country as the German v is sounded f, making Vicks slang for sexual intercourse. 22 lC oors slogan Turn it loose, when translated into Spanish, is a colloquial term for having diarrhoea, while the American Dairy Associations Got milk? campaign translated into Are you lactating? version of the brand, Bensi, means rush to die. And global slogan Pepsi brings you back to life appeared in China as Pepsi brings you back from the grave. in Spanish-speaking nations. Some brands get it right. Locally well in Brazil, where its a slang term (ko-ka-ko-la), when it was first sold in lF ords Pinto model didnt go down for tiny male genitals. Mitsubishi had to change its Pajero brand in Spanish-speaking countries, where it was understood as masturbator. lK FC is known globally for being finger-licking good which translated as eat your fingers off in China. Also stung there was Mercedes-Benz; a Mandarin-ised produced signs for Coca-Cola China, were sometimes translated as bite the wax tadpole or female horse fastened with wax. But the company was already developing a local brand, settling on the symbols Ko-Kou-Ko-l which means to allow the mouth to be able to rejoice a far more apt trademark that it registered in 1928.