A Comparative Case Study of Global Marketing and Ethnocentrism ...

of U.S. ethnocentric tendencies. Mr. Bergmann teaches German language classes at
NYU. He has a degree in Language instruction from Beijing University, has studied in
Moscow, and specializes in interpretation (Chinese, English, Russian and German).
Bergman translates, edits and supervises rather large U.S. advertising efforts to ensure
that meaning is not lost or completely changed when messages are transferred into
another language from English. He relates that there are many hundreds of mistakes
made by the U.S. companies in advertising to other cultures. U.S. companies and the
U.S. population in general are unaware of the fact that when English words are
translated into another language they might become offensive and actually provoke the
opposite reaction from what was intended. For example, Bergmann cites the well-
known “Got Milk?” campaign. The U.S. company who ran this ad did not feel they
needed any counseling before marketing in Mexico and Germany, however, in both
countries the phrase translated as, “Are You Lactating?” and was not well received.
(Bergmann interview transcript in appendix A). Keep in mind that U.S. ethnocentrism
may be used as an advertising advantage when marketing in the U.S. itself, and rising
consumer patriotic emotions may be successful in producing responses in favor of
American products (Beaudoin, Goldsmith and Moore 1240). However, Bergmann also
adds that there are many more problems than just translating. He relates certain images
of people, places and things can bring specific messages across to certain cultures, and
a negative reaction is often the result. Many U.S. produced ads fair terribly in
Germany for this very reason.
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