Mountain Dew’s latest ad gets rather lost in translation
By James Herring on Friday, August 31, 2018
Running generic ads in other territories can be a high risk game if you are not across the local lingo. Just ask Mountain Dew.
The soft drink brand is being ripped on Twitter for inadvertently telling Scottish people that they’re chronic masturbators.
Earlier this week the brand’s UK division posted GIF of a young man downing a bottle of the soft drink.
The tagline “Epic thrills start with a chug.”
Trouble is “Chug” is Scot slang for masturbation.
The post caption nudged the blunder even further over the cliff “We didn’t choose the chug life, the chug life chose us. #DoTheDew.”
Scottish Tweeters took it upon themselves to point out the error (in the now deleted post).
You guys didnt really consult anyone from Scotland on this UK wide marketing campaign eh?
— Baseballscot (@baseballscot) August 27, 2018
I think you should change that slogan ??✊?
— Dylan M Board (@BoardDylan) August 27, 2018
Do you guys know what “a chug” is in Scotland? ??✊?
— Ross (@Ross81UK) August 30, 2018
This isn’t the first time that Mountain Dew has been scorched online.
In 2012 they ran an online public competition for fans to come up with a name for an Apple infused flavour.
“Hitler did nothing wrong,” “Diabeetus,” and “Gushing Granny” all topped the online rankings to name the new drink.
h/t Design Taxi
