One of the most famous cases of a corporate marketing disaster was when Chevrolet decided to make a push into the Latin American marketplace. One of the vehicles they were advertising heavily was the old reliable Chevy Nova. Unfortunately, the marketing gurus failed to realize that "No Va" in Spanish translated to "No Go". Chevrolet quickly pulled its marketing campaign and concentrated on different models. After all, nobody wanted a new car called the No Go.

In a similar vein, Toyota encountered problems when marketing their MR2 sports car in France: The French pronunciation sounds like "Emm-Air Deux" or "merde"; the French slang for "shit".

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