Home » South African Shops Share Typo Disasters with Adidas

South African Shops Share Typo Disasters with Adidas

Social media users have had a field day sharing photos of blatant misspelling (and miscalculations) by South African shops. But if it counts for anything – their errors have at least made people laugh, unlike the mistake made by major international brand Adidas… which offended an entire nation! One South African shop wrote ‘hole’ instead of ‘whole’ and another […]

By SAPeople
09-06-16 20:33
in Eish!

Social media users have had a field day sharing photos of blatant misspelling (and miscalculations) by South African shops. But if it counts for anything – their errors have at least made people laugh, unlike the mistake made by major international brand Adidas… which offended an entire nation!

PicknPayHole
Photo sent in by Lee Wilson

One South African shop wrote ‘hole’ instead of ‘whole’ and another referred to ‘Angry Birds’ as ‘Angry Bed’.

Angry Bed
Photo sent in by Maureen Swanepoel Jordaan‎ – “What did you do to make your bed so angry!?”

Then there was the shop that offered goods at special birthday prices… that were more expensive than the original prices!

Birthday-specials-gone-wrong2
Photo sent in by Jessica Dreyer‎
Birthday-specials-gone-wrong2
Photo sent in by Reyaaz Sallie‎ – “And then you get this fantastic special.”

But these mistakes paled in comparison to that of Adidas which misspelled the country Colombia (writing Columbia instead) in its national campaign of the Colombian team for the Copa America tournament.

Adidas, which has provided the team’s football uniforms since 2011, has since apologised and removed the graphics. New versions are being installed today.

One Colombian was so upset she wrote the company an open letter explaining that “in a world where ignorance is infamous when it comes to the acknowledgement of third world countries, it is unbeknownst to me why the correct spelling of COLOMBIA is so difficult to comprehend for the general public.”