Brand Names

Most of us have received the famous email (or variation thereof) listing funny instructions in English which were obviously not written by a native English speaker. Like this sign in a Scandinavian airport which is fabled to read, "We take your bags and send them in all directions" or this gem from a Japanese car rental brochure "When passenger of foot heave in sight, tootle the horn. Trumpet him melodiously at first, but if he still obstacles your passage then tootle him with vigor."

But today let's talk about brand names - bad brand names. Some brand names are funny (like "Snapple"). Some are cute (like "Osh Kosh B'Gosh" - a kids clothing brand). Some are clever (like someone I know who wants to open a factory in Nazareth called "Cheeses of Nazareth" - say it slow...)

The best brand names are the ones that are easy to remember. Unfortunately, sometimes they are easy to remember for the wrong reasons.

Some brand names "flunk" because the marketing guys don't do their homework. They import brand names to a new country where they don't realise that there, the name has a different meaning or a sinister connotation. For example, a car manufactured by Chevy, branded "Nova", was imported into Mexico. Unfortunately, "Nova" in Spanish means "No Go".

Other brand names are just plain terrible, as if no thought has been put into the marketing aspects of the name at all. Here are a few examples:

• Hyundai markets a car in Israel called the "Hyundai Trajet" - how tragic;
• There's a brand of baby-bottles called "Infanti" - instantly reminding me of the word "infanticide";
• How about "Urnie", an unfortunately named electric urn made by Kambrook; and
  
• R.C. Cola - in Hebrew, "arsi" (with the emphasis on "si") means poison, or (with the emphasis on "ar") means redneck.
  

If you can think of more, post them as comments to this blog.