Last but not least: Prove the energy of the city!

Renault, for example, advertises its environmental technologies with "Drive the change". According to Spiegel.de, only 19 percent of respondents translated the slogan correctly as "Drive the change" or "Drive the change". Four fifths, on the other hand, failed miserably and translated the slogan as "Drive for change" or "Drive for opportunity". Nissan advertises with "Urban proof energized". If Renault's "Drive the change" is already causing considerable difficulties, Nissan's slogan will probably cause even greater puzzlement, the bright reader will think. And rightly so: even at the car manufacturer's German headquarters, the words were difficult to translate into meaningful German, as reported by Endmark at the request of Spiegel online. And of the people surveyed, only 16 percent were able to correctly interpret the slogan as "The car charges the city with energy", while others translated it as "Proving the city's energy", for example. Incidentally, the Mazda slogan "Defy Convention" took first place among the misunderstood slogans - only three percent were able to correctly translate the two words as "Defy Convention".

Incidentally, this is not the first time that Endmark has carried out a study of this kind. Each time, the same picture emerged: Germans do not understand English. In 2009, for example, they failed the Opel claim of "Explore the City" - they translated it as "Explosions at the city limits". However, the agency doesn't seem to be too impressed by these results - it describes itself on its website as "Experts in naming marketing. Small enough to care, big enough to deliver.". Small enough to care, big enough to deliver. Or something like that.