Beverage brand Coca-Cola’s attempt to blend two languages has left the company in a soup. Aiming to combine the language spoken by the indigenous population of New Zealand te reo Māori and English, the company accidentally wrote “Hello, Death” on one of its vending machines. While mate means friend in English, it translates to 'death' in Maori. ALSO READ | Tiny Donald Trump statues with sign ‘Pee On Me’ installed across Brooklyn According to The Guardian, while various application of Google such as maps, translate and more are trying to adapt to the native language, the beverage company's attempt has clearly fallen 'flat'. It did not take long for the people to take note of the mistake and soon it made it to social media. "When the languages don't mix well," Tweeted Waikato Reo. The person then went on to correct the mistake. When the languages don't mix well. pic.twitter.com/3piZIoptAE — Waikato Reo (@waikatoreo) October 14, 2018 Coke got an unexpected result when they mixed Māori and English, greeting death in the indigenous tounge @CNN @abcnews @Indigenouslp @abcnewsaus @bbchealth @TeKaeaOfficial Mate means death in Maori. pic.twitter.com/BEy4s7VWSG — Waikato Reo (@waikatoreo) October 14, 2018 fixed it for you #MateMaaTonga #MMT pic.twitter.com/nTpLn6RC8h — @filikudesignco (@FILIKU) October 14, 2018 The post has created quite some buzz on social media, with many wondering if this 'mistake' was a kind of 'self realisation' for the beverage company others found it quite 'ironic'. Here are some of the tweets that followed the post: America: "Coke Adds Life" Aotearoa: "The truth is out there"#AlternateWorldAdvertising — Phil D 🚫🍍🍕 (@HaggisKiwi) October 14, 2018 Or totally spot on it does mean deaths for a lot of indigenous people — karen lindsay (@karenlindsay6) October 14, 2018 The Coca Cola company gains self awareness? — Lulu Purda 🏳️🌈💚✊ (@LuluPurda) October 14, 2018 pic.twitter.com/hs1MeZjMsp — Deiric Ní Mhurchú (@ThatsSoDerek) October 14, 2018 Ah, ignorance. — Sash (@Daggard) October 14, 2018 Someone caught and said, “ahhh, just change the font color, it’ll be fine.” — Kūʻē (@KueKueKue2) October 14, 2018 It’s quite funny when you understand it, but fortunately for Coke only a small percentage of people will actually understand it! — Edwin Hermann (@edwinhermann) October 15, 2018
