HERSHEY HIGHWAY TO HELL:

Slogan could offend Spanish speakers: Hershey's new Elegancita chocolate bar boasts that it has 'cajeta,' which means one thing in Mexico but has an entirely different meaning for other Latin Americans. (CHRISTINA HOAG, 3/08/05, Miami Herald)

Argentines and other South Americans may do a double take when they see Hershey's new Elegancita chocolate bar and an ad for its Kisses being promoted by Mexican bombshell Thalía.

The advertisement, running in People en Español, features a shot of the sexy songstress about to bite into the Kiss with a slogan boasting ''sabor a chocolate blanco con cajeta'' (white chocolate taste with goat's-milk caramel). The chocolate bar proclaims that it is ''Cajeta Elegancita'' on the wrapper.

Well, that's the Mexican version of cajeta -- a type of dulce de leche, a very sweet, caramelized condensed milk eaten straight from a tin, drizzled atop desserts or made into candies throughout Latin America.

But in Argentina, Uruguay, and Paraguay, cajeta, ahem, is a vulgar term for a certain delicate part of the female anatomy.

''This is obviously the work of someone who did not do their homework,'' said José Cancela, principal with Hispanic USA, a Coral Gables marketing consultancy.