Product branding can be a tricky game

In most English speaking countries product names can pretty straight forward albeit more than a little wacky when it comes to Web 2.0 web services. Once you step out of that comfort zone though and enter other countries around the world picking that perfect brand name could prove to be disastrous, and provide more than a few chuckles along the way.

Over at the Branding Strategy blog they have listed some of the more interesting errors companies have over the years.

1. Reebok had to backpedal after it blundered with the launch of a running shoe for women named the INCUBUS. The dictionary says an incubus is “an evil spirit believed to descend upon and have sex with women while they sleep.”

2. British shoemaker Umbro must not have been paying attention. Umbro was denounced in August 2002 as “appallingly insensitive” for using the name ZYKLON for a running shoe. That’s the same name as the lethal gas used in Nazi extermination camps during the Second World War.

3. A food company named its giant burrito a BURRADA. Big mistake. The colloquial meaning of that word is "big mistake."

4. General Motors named a new Chevrolet the BERETTA without getting permission from the Italian arms manufacturer. It cost GM $500,000 to settle the lawsuit.

5. Ford had a problem in Brazil when the PINTO flopped. The company found out that Pinto was Brazilian slang for "tiny male genitals." Ford pried all the nameplates off and substituted the name Corcel, which means "horse."

NOTE: this Pinto story was debunked in the comments on the post.

6. The Thailand office of the ad agency Leo Burnett alerted a client that their proposed name for a motor oil, phonetically, read as TIGHT VIRGIN. The name was altered.

7. In Asia, Mitsubishi’s sports utility vehicle named the PAJERO drew laughter from Spanish-speaking consumers. In Spanish, pajero means “one who masturbates.”

8. Estee Lauder was set to export its COUNTRY MIST makeup line when German managers pointed out that in their language “mist” is slang for “manure.” The name became Country Moist in Germany.

9. Apparently undaunted, another cosmetics firm introduced the MIST STICK, a curling iron, in Germany. We wonder how many fräuleins were prepared to use a “manure stick?”

10. Gulf Oil wanted to use its NO-NOX name to brand its gasoline in Indonesia. However, after Gulf started using the name in Indonesia, it found to its chagrin that No-Nox sounded like the Bahasa word "nonok," which is a slang term for female genitals.

11. Japan’s second-largest tourist office was mystified when it entered English-speaking markets and began receiving requests for unusual sex tours. The owners of KINKI Nippon Tourist promptly changed their name.

12. A leading brand of car de-icer in Finland will never make it in America. The brand name: SUPER PISS.

13. Ditto for Japan’s leading brand of coffee creamer. The brand name: CREAP.

14. We alerted a client that a proposed name for a power tool with the word GAGE in it (DynaGage, PowerGage) would likely be pronounced like the Spanish word gajes, which has the connotation of an occupational hazard.