Discover

'Foreign branding' is an advertising and marketing term describing the implied cachet or superiority of domestic products with a foreign or foreign-sounding name.
In English-speaking countries, many cosmetics and fashion brands use French-styled names to imply a connection to the style-conscious. Food and drink items also use French names, trading on the high reputation of France in these areas. One example is the use of the name of the French wine-growing district of Chablis on bottles of generic-quality American-grown white wine. The practice became common enough that ''Chablis'', attached to an American domestic wine, ultimately came to convey an image of cheapness. The practice has a long history: the cold potato and leek soup vichyssoise was invented at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New York in the 1910s and was given a French name to make it sound more palatable.
In the UK the perceived higher quality of German and Scandinavian kitchens led the English company Moben Kitchens to trademark "Möben" in 1977 [1], while the electrical retailer Dixons adopted the Japanese-sounding brand ''Matsui'' for its own brand of consumer electronics equipment.
In countries where the common language is not English, English-based foreign branding is often found. For instance, in Germany it is common for television advertisements to be mainly in German, but to end with an English-language motto or slogan; recently, however, there has been a notable shift back towards German due to widespread complaints from language purists and studies showing that many target audiences with moderate English proficiency misunderstood the intended message. The most prominent example in this respect is Sat.1 Television, which abandoned its poorly understood corporate slogan ''"Powered by Emotion"'' in favor of ''"Sat.1 zeigt's allen"'', a phrase that is much more catchy to German ears and translates into "Sat.1 shows it to everybody" or, idiomatically, "Sat.1 shows everybody how it's done properly" or "Sat.1 shows everybody how (or why) it is superior". Another example was the Finnish telecommunications company Sonera, which adopted the English slogan ''"Make things click"'', as in "click in place". The problem is, that the colloquial term ''klikkaa'' "it clicks" means the exact opposite, "it malfunctions".
Foreign branding is also often used in Mexico, mostly due to the country's proximity to the United States. In Japanese markets, products often have foreign (or foreign-sounding) names.
English has different connotations than Italian or French.
The English-sounding names may be Engrishy and ungrammatical in real English, but in some cases may be accepted when the product reaches foreign markets. South Korea-based LG Electronics named its washer and dryer line ''Tromm''. One of the reasons for selecting this foreign sounding name was to imply a connection to superior quality in the domestic market, as foreign brands of appliances were held in high regard. However, Tromm is a global product line for LG Electronics.
IKEA makes extensive use of foreign branding worldwide. In IKEA stores throughout the world, shoppers find that the products have Scandinavian/Swedish names (words/places). This sometimes results in unintentional humour, as the names often sound strange to non-Swedish ears and may even seem to have meaning (for instance, the ''Flygel'' lamp, which can evoke, in English, images of a fly trapped in gelatin). Conversely, English product names and slogans are commonplace on Swedish products marketed mainly to Swedes.
The foreign-branded item need not have a name that would appeal to native speakers of the language. For instance, Pocari Sweat, a popular sports drink marketed in Japan by the Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., has a name that to many English speakers would imply that the product actually contains sweat, rather than the intended meaning of a beverage intended to replace the electrolytes lost in sweating.
In some cases the foreign name may even be offensive to native speakers. There are an inordinate amount of car models that can be used as examples: The Mitsubishi Pajero had to be renamed to ''Montero'' in Spain and Hispanic America, since ''pajero'' is a Spanish slang term equivalent to "wanker," or even "faggot." However, Mitsubishi originally got the Pajero name innocently from the pampas cat species. [2]. Another example is the Honda Fitta ("cunt") in Sweden and Norway (the car was later renamed.) Similarly, the primarily-US fast food chain Taco Bell formerly sold a burrito called a ''chili-cheese burrito''. Its name was switched to this when many people became aware that the original name, ''chilito,'' is often used as a slang term for penis in Mexico.

Contents

Foreign branding through creative spelling

Colloquial foreign branding through pronunciation

See Also

External links

Foreign branding through creative spelling

A Bronx, New York premium-priced ice cream was dubbed ''Häagen-Dazs'' to imply "old world craftsmanship and tradition." ''Häagen-Dazs'' has no meaning in any European language, although it contains several conventions used in European languages, such as the umlaut. IKEA's ''unböring'' advertising campaign is a similar example.
Häagen-Dazs spawned imitators, such as Frusen Glädjé (''frusen glädje'' without the acute accent meaning "frozen joy" in Swedish), another brand of premium ice cream. Häagen Dazs sued unsuccessfully in 1980 to stop them from using a "Scandinavian marketing theme."
The comic strip ''Hagar the Horrible'' is sometimes billed as ''Hågar the Hørrible'' to emphasize its Viking theme. In German translations the name of the main character is actually written ''Hägar'' or ''Hægar'', which makes it similar to the English pronunciation, whereas ''å'' sounds more like ''o''.
The fashion for the heavy metal umlaut (use of umlauts in the names of heavy metal bands) can also be seen as a form of foreign branding. Here, the image being sought is probably more specifically Teutonic rather than European in general.
Diacritics are not the only marketing weapons available. Faux Cyrillic lifts entire Cyrillic characters to add "Яussiaи" (which would actually be pronounced ''Yaussiai'') flavor. "GrΣΣk" (actually pronounced ''grssk'') characters are similarly abused as in advertising for ''MY BIG FAT GRΣΣK WEDDING''. The cover of Madonna's ''Greatest Hits Volume 2'' contains the seemingly Japanese string モヂジラミミヂ, which some people believe is an attempt to render the word "MADONNA" by using ''katakana'' characters as stylized English letters. The actual explanation is slightly more complicated. Each key on a Japanese keyboard is marked with both a Latin and a Japanese phonetic character. The cover text string is made up of the Japanese characters that share the same keys as the letters M-A-D-O-N-N-A. It was most likely made by hitting these keys while the keyboard was in "kana key" mode. The real Japanese reading, ''mojijiramimiji'', is meaningless.

Colloquial foreign branding through pronunciation

In many areas, notably Australia and some regions of the United States, the 'Target' chain of stores is often ironically referred to as "tah-ZHAY" or "tar-ZHAY", because French clothing is perceived to be more fashionable. Another example is 'JC Penney' being pronounced as "ZHOCK Pe-NAY" (Jacques Penné) to connote the same French fashion style. Similarly, when Kroger opened a large new supermarket in Durham, North Carolina in the late 1980s, many locals referred to this store as "Chez Kro-ZHAY".

See Also

★ Engrish

External links

★ by graphic designer Bruce Campbell

★ English-language page for Pocari Sweat, from the Otsuka Pharmaceutical Company (Wayback Machine archive)

★ A report by Ernst & Young on the declining status of American "chablis"

★ The Modish Macron, a Language Log post about use of the macron in branding