With an increase in international trade, it has become imperative for companies to understand the language and culture of target markets in foreign countries. This is because consumers in these foreign markets interpret the advertising in terms of their own language and culture. Thus, any lingustic or cultural blunder by the company while designing ads for the international markets could have disastrous consequences. This article discusses some of the common advertising blunders committed by corporates in the international markets.

While doing business in the international markets, companies encounter many cultural differences between the markets. Companies will be successful in the international arena if they understand and pay attention to the language and cultural differences between different countries and markets. They should know and respect the culture of each individual country in which they are doing business. They should also understand the languages of the countries in order to ensure that there is no miscommunication.

A sentence, statement or a slogan of a company can have different meanings in different countries and in different languages. When a product is marketed to an international audience, the usual domestic advertising campaign might not be effective because of the language and cultural differences. For example: "finger lickin' good" is the slogan of Kentucky Fried Chicken, but when the company entered the Chinese market, the catch phrase became "eat your fingers off", much to the company's horror.

For a product to reach across the globe, companies have to design different advertisements for different markets. Accurate translation of the advertisements is to be done. It must also be ensured that the charm of the ad is not lost in the process. Companies should understand the exact meaning of the advertisement and translate it, ensuring that the meaning is clear and the exact message is conveyed to the target customers. In most of the cases, if the translation of the ad is not proper the advertising campaign will be ineffective and will not reach the desired target audiences.

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