Oops!
Adventures in mistranslated advertising
A good deal of the tales are true:
• Braniff Airlines really did translate Fly in leather into Sentado en cuero, unaware that in colloquial Floridian Spanish they were encouraging passengers to fly naked. • Clairol really did learn the hard way that in colloquial German their Mist Stick could as well be a Manure Stick. • Speaking of unintended potty humor, Coors found that in Spanish its slogan Turn it loose could be taken as a reference to diarrhea. |
As reported on NPR:
In Spanish, nova means the same as it does in English. You need to insert a space to get to no va, and evidently people didn't. The Nova sold very well in both Mexico and Venezuela.
A delightful article by Geoffrey James lists 20 verified advertising translation blunders (James, too, points out that the Nova thing is a myth), which you can read by clicking here.