Foreign branding

In English-speaking countries

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, while the electrical retailer Dixons adopted the Japanese-sounding brand Matsui for its own brand of consumer electronics equipment.

In others countries

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.

Examples

IKEA makes extensive use of foreign branding worldwide. In IKEA stores throughout the world, shoppers find that the products have Swedish names, even if the items were sourced from Asian countries like Pakistan. 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." . Another example is the Honda Fitta ("cunt") in Sweden and Norway. 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.

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