solution

When Wendy’s entered Germany, it wanted to use two marketing promotions:

– That its quality was good “old-fashioned” quality

– That its burgers could be prepared 256 different “ways”

Luckily, Wendy’s hired a local person to work on its advertising staff, and the local pointed out that the word being used

for “old-fashion” meant outdated, and the word for “ways” meant roads or highways. Thus, Wendy’s narrowly avoided

saying:

Get our outdated hamburgers on 256 different highways

The lesson here is (A) hire local talent if you do business in a foreign country; (B) dictionary definitions are not

necessarily what is generally understood in the street (e.g. slang); (C) it is assumed that Germans think modern

quality is inferior to past quality, hence no progress in this area has been made; (D) it is assumed that Germans

want 256 choices, as opposed to a standard hamburger. [NOTE: We see in the Walmart Case Study, that

Walmart failed in Germany because it didn’t understand that Germans don’t like “greeters” at the door (why smile

in a store?), and Germans like to pack their own bags (why have someone else touch my purchases?)]