If you’re like me, you’ve probably absent-mindedly read the back of the shampoo/shower gel/whatever while performing your ablutions and waiting for the morning coffee to kick in.
If so, you might have noticed (at least if you’re in the UK) that a huge number of men’s toiletry products - shaving foam, deodorant shower gel, even razor blades themselves - have the product information in Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Finnish as well as English. And only those languages.
Why is this? By far the most common “second language” seen on products in Europe is French, and lots of women’s toiletries indeed have French. Food products often have German and Spanish. But pick up a can of shaving foam and it’s Scandinavian a gogo. Hardly any other product category does. What’s up with that?
Well that’s what I mean. The most common foreign language seen on UK goods tends to be French, by virtue of proximity (goods solely for use in the UK wouldn’t tend to have it any other language, though). Having Scandinavian on one particular category of products would be like having, oh, I dunno, Filipino on your shaving gel in the USA.
I’m assuming it’s something to do with export regions, but it’s a mystery to me…
French is on a lot of US products, I assume for sale in Canada, either to encourage Quebecois purchases or by law. Spanish obviously for that market, but French is common even in the west. No Scandinavian or Finnish. It seems that they also use certain languages to add cachet. French on women’s stuff like you mentioned. Swedish is often used to make things classy, e.g. a doorknob. Made in Sweden! (see Swedish-made penis enlarger). I have seen Scandanavian typically on import products, like German-made.
This is basically true in the US. Lots of stuff that you find in a store in the US often have French and/or Spanish in addition to English. I’ve assumed that the French is there because they also sell it in Canada, and that the Spanish is there to actually appeal to Spanish speakers in the US (i.e. it’s a real practicality).
So I can see how it would make sense for British manufacturers to put Swedish, Norwegian, etc. text on their labels: instant international marketing.
Likewise, if the products are made and marketed in Scandinavian countries themselves, well duh, naturally they include text in those languages.
If these products aren’t being either made in or sold in Scandinavian countries and the Swedish/Norwegian/Finnish/etc. text is just a marketing ploy, my guess would be that the ad guys think that Scandinavian cultures have connotations of cool-and-well-groomed-yet-manly. French or Italian might seem a bit “gigolo-esque” but Norwegian is hip?.. Sorry, I got nothing.