Not too long ago, Facebook rebranded to Meta, to much fanfare and interest worldwide. One country where the rebrand didn’t gone down so well, though, is Israel – because in Hebrew, meta sounds like the word for ‘dead’. We examine times when major company rebrands have failed to hit the mark in international markets, and look at how translation agencies can help firms to avoid such mistakes.

Precisely, the word ‘meta’ is the female form of the word ‘dead’ in Hebrew, and the fact that the world’s biggest social media firm has rebranded to this name has certainly not been lost on Hebrew speakers. One took to Twitter to say: “Thank you for providing all Hebrew speakers a good reason to laugh.” Another said: “The Jewish community will ridicule this name for years to come.”

Lost in translation 

So, how did Facebook miss this, especially considering Hebrew-speakers make up a significant target audience? Another Twitter user commented: “Maybe Facebook (I guess Meta now?) should have done some focus groups on the rebranding.” But while many a many focus group would without doubt have taken place before Facebook embarked on such a major rebranding journey, this case of failing to account for how a name might be perceived in a different culture or language has been all too common for even the biggest companies.

KFC’s hallmark slogan ‘finger lickin’ good’, for instance, did not go down so well in the 1980s, when the fast-food chain arrived in mainland China for the first time. This is because the slogan literally translated as ‘eat your fingers off’ in Mandarin. Though the launch campaign did not quite hit the intended mark, KFC is still one of the most popular food chains in China.

US brewing company Coors experienced a similar translation mishap when taking its famous ‘turn it loose’ slogan to the Spanish market – because in Spanish, the translated version was associated with a very different meaning: to ‘suffer from diarrhoea’. This is while Vicks, the cough medicine firm, had to quickly change its name to Wicks in Germany – as a result of Vicks being pronounced the same way a rather common expletive is in German.

These unforeseen mishaps, along with the many other rebrands that didn’t quite hit the mark in specific target areas worldwide, show exactly how difficult transcreation is to get right. This is why transcreation agencies, with linguists local to the culture and language in question, can and should play a central role in the translation and localisation of slogans. Do you know your Wicks from your Vicks? If in doubt, we’re here to help!