Tesco packaging: Spaghetti or Salami?
News:
Despite Tesco’s attention to detail, a piece of packaging managed to escape their notice and hit the store shelves with some questionable images.
An image appearing on their Tesco Finest range of Spaghetti Bolognese, featuring an authentic looking photo of dried meats at an Italian market turned out to feature some humorous labelling.
The photo had been on the packaging for “a long time” before an Italian-speaking customer pointed out that the signs in the photo actually read “Grandad’s balls” and ‘Donkey bollocks”.
In Italy, the term “Coglioni di Mulo” is considered a serious insult, whereas “Le Palle de Nonno” is slang referring to a type of Italian salami.
Tesco apologized for the packaging error, stating that it would be changed at the earliest opportunity.
Behind the News:
This linguistic gaffe shows that something can always slip through the net unnoticed. It also proves the need to collaborate with people from different cultures who understand the language, but are also sensitive enough to cultural differences to realize when something is not quite right.
In this case, a customer was the first to alert Tesco to this mishap. If the correct people are consulted in good time to check advertising for anything out of the ordinary, then these situations can be easily avoided.