Hello Customer (name blocked for privacy),

According to "Introduction to Asian Translation," the Pepsi slogan "Come alive with the Pepsi Generation" was translated "Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead" in Taiwan. Yikes! Here's a link to that. Go down to page four. http://www.star-ts.com/STAR/download/pdf/documents/asia.pdf

Thanks to technology, the world has become increasingly smaller. The up side to this is more companies marketing their products internationally. This opens up markets and customers unimaginable before. Suddenly, your product is seen by millions, perhaps billions more potential customers. Profits could go through the roof, if, you do your research.

While sales going up is a big incentive to give international marketing a try, there are risks involve too. Research is essential before marketing your goods to foreign lands and cultures. Differences that could cause problems if not addressed are:

• Cultural and religious differences. What may offend one culture or religion is looked on with favor in another.
• Differing communication styles. In the United States we expect commercials to tell us what to do. We are a "get to the point" kind of people. In other lands, such as Asia, they aren't so straight-forward. Our commercials would be seen as being very pushy.
• Superstition. Something as simple as a number can cause problems. Certain numbers are believed to be unlucky in some cultures. They take their superstitions very seriously, so what would happen if you package your products in that amount? No sales!
• Me verses we. In America there's a common saying, "look out for number one." In some countries, such as Mexico, they don't think that way. They work for the good of the group and are very family oriented.

While these things may seem unimportant or even silly to us, it's just a part of marketing internationally. You have to know what the people believe, how they live and what they think. So doing your research before you market internationally is money in the bank.

Here's a link to an article I got information from.

http://www.malkam.com/en/CultureShock/Issue02.asp