When Coca-Cola first wanted to introduce its product to the Chinese market (in 1928), they needed to find Chinese characters that approximated the sound "ko-ka-ko-la." The company searched long and hard for suitable syllables that would convey no adverse or nonsensical meanings. Local shopkeepers were less particular, however, and many hung out homemade signs combining Chinese characters whose pronunciation got the sound right, but whose meaning was unrelated to the product. One such string, for instance, produced the sentiment "Bite the wax tadpole." (I've heard people use this phrase as slang for "That stinks," as in, "That really bites the wax tadpole.")
Urban legend has it that Coke went with the first set of syllables that sounded like their name, but that's not quite how it happened. The Coca-Cola company eventually settled on the characters K'o K'ou K'o Le, which can be translated to mean "to allow the mouth to be able to rejoice" or "something palatable from which one receives pleasure." (Info courtesy of Snopes2. www.snopes2.com bills itself as Urban Legends Reference Pages; includes legends and folktales that the authors say are true, as well as those shown to be false. Does NOT claim to be the ultimate authority on anything, but sure makes interesting reading. Moral of story: don't trust everything you read on the Web.)
There are other, similarly entertaining tales of American advertising companies not taking translation difficulties into account when marketing in other languages. Some are true, some aren't, and you've probably seen much-forwarded e-mail lists including both. One false story relates that the Chevy Nova didn't sell well in Spanish-speaking countries because "no va" means "does not go" in Spanish. Click on the links below to see a couple such lists. I make no claims as to veracity, but they're still amusing.