Coca-Cola's embarrassing vending machine blunder
<p>It’s a pitfall marketing departments must come across regularly, the risk of a message painfully missing the mark, lost in translation.</p>
<p>Coca-Cola Amatil New Zealand is currently feeling the heat over that very pitfall, with some vending machines in the country causing much mirth on social media.</p>
<p>The offending slogan on the machines reads: “Kia ora, Mate”. ‘Kia ora’ is a greeting you’ll often hear in New Zealand, but “mate” in te reo Māori means “death”. So the slogan essentially reads “Hello, death.”</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<p dir="ltr">When the languages don't mix well. <a href="https://t.co/3piZIoptAE">pic.twitter.com/3piZIoptAE</a></p>
— Waikato Reo (@waikatoreo) <a href="https://twitter.com/waikatoreo/status/1051264259089264640?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 14, 2018</a></blockquote>
<p>One of the machines is at Auckland International Airport and is <span>where Gareth Seymour spotted the vending machine.</span></p>
<p>"I read with Māori language eyes and thought, ‘They haven't had this checked by a Māori,” he told <em><a rel="noopener" href="https://www.sbs.com.au/nitv/article/2018/10/15/kia-ora-death-vending-machine-slogan-gets-lost-translation" target="_blank">NITV News</a></em>. He suggested the slogan should have read “Kia ora e hoa” or “hello friend”.</p>
<p>The response on social media after a shot of the vending machine was posted was merciless.</p>
<p>“This reminds me of being back in uni and learning marketing 101,” said one Facebook user.</p>
<p>“The coca cola company gains self-awareness?” tweeted another detractor, referencing the potentially dire health effects of Coca-Cola.</p>
<p>But the commentary became serious with this comment on social media: “Totally spot on, it does mean death for a lot of Indigenous people.”</p>
<p>There are some that have argued that the Māori native tongue and English language commonly mix, and that’s the line Coca-Cola Amatil NZ has taken.</p>
<p>"In no way was the ‘mate’ in reference to any Māori word, that would have been inappropriate and unacceptable,” the company said in a statement to <em>NITV News</em>.</p>
<p>It said that by merging the two words, it "only meant to bring Maori and English together".</p>
<p>"Coca-Cola Amatil New Zealand is proudly Kiwi and respects and embraces all aspects of Maori culture and any other culture."</p>
<p>The company wouldn’t say, however, whether the Māori community had been consulted on the marketing campaign.</p>
<p>Seymour said that, “Even a Māori-speaking school kid would notice the mistake. The moral of [the] story is – if you use it there are ways of doing it right.”</p>
<p>What "lost in translation" blunders have you seen? Let us know in the comments section.</p>
