This article totally misses how brands and slogans are translated into Chinese. Accuracy in translation is important but is often superseded by other decisions. The right word is not necessarily the most accurate word.

Company budgets to translate a slogan can be in the millions of dollars, and the process takes months, for a reason. Major mistakes have been made.

Nike and Mcdonald's are well-known for mistakes translating their respective slogans in China [1]. Coke-Cola got things right (way back in the 1920's too!) but still famously got hurt in translation [2].

I don't know the details behind IBM's translation of "Think" here. I agree with the article the translation in the picture "认为" Rènwéi is not a 100% accurate translation of the original use of "Think" by Watson.

But a few things to consider and speculate on:

This is a picture of the IBM France office. Why is Chinese even on the wall in France. How seriously was this planned.

IBM has used different translations in the past. Like "Siwei". Why might it have changed.

When translating to Chinese how a word will sound makes a big difference. Often how a word sounds in Chinese is treated as more important than its definition. Seriously. For extreme examples see "ba" and "si". ba is good but si is not so avoid it [8]. Did the sound of "Renwei" over the sound of other words like "Siwei" play a factor in the decision? Maybe. I don't know...

Renwei spelled "认为" sounds like the word Renwei spelled as "人为". That word's meaning is associated with "man-made", "human effort" and "artificial". Also "renwei" is in the phrase "以人为本" or "yi ren wei ben" which means something like "putting people first". This is a phrase already loved and adopted by other companies (VW) and more importantly by the PRC government. Might IBM have wanted employees to read and understand the word "Think" but also wanted these other associations of Renwei? Who wouldn't want associations like a company that cares about its people...or a place where humans are "making" products like "artificial" intelligence...or a phrase where IBM can thank Chinese government officials for the inspiration...plus is still does mean "Think".

Speaking of the government, might there have been government pressure for IBM not to use corporate propaganda that could be interpreted as encouraging employees to think in a way that challenges everything or is disruptive thinking. Maybe a safer choice of "think" was to use a more "accepting" of what you are told definition of think...

Lastly, Thomas Watson specifically said he didn't want to define what THINK means, every and all interpretations counted, THINK is just some letters and employees need to learn and find out what THINK means to IBM and to them.

The translation could have been random or mistake or intentional. Pretty clear you cannot say it is wrong. I respect the article was written by a Chinese language professor at Penn maybe trying to teach students something about translation. But many of these students are going out into the business world and translation in international business does not work how it works in the Chinese language department of a university. Keep up the good work, but maybe next time loop in a Wharton professor too before writing something like this.

[1] Nike "Just do it" in China: http://brandchannel.com/2011/08/01/nike-uses-localization-an...

[1] Mcdonald's "I'm loving it" in China: https://chinaipr.com/2015/03/15/im-lovin-it-a-wrong-way-for-...

[2] Coke nailed the translation with "Ke Kou Ke Le" but the company had to address mistranslations: http://www.coca-colacompany.com/stories/bite-the-wax-ta

[8] "Ba" is the number 8 but "ba" also sounds a bit like "fa" and "fa" has among its many meanings "to become wealthy". So this basically seems to have led to a go all out use "ba" and the number 8 as much as possible. When it comes to translation if a company had a chance to choose a slightly less accurate word but it contains a "ba" sound, there is a very good chance they will choose that. "Si" is different story, I won't go into detail, but si means 4 and also sounds like words associated with death and punishment, in China avoid "si" and 4 if possible. Tons and tons of examples out there about how much the sound of a word matters. But the use "ba" and "8" has are the best: http://shanghaiist.com/2016/06/29/lucky_license_plate_backfi...