I saw a product in a catalog today that made me shake my head. It was on sale, $5.95 for a 10oz bar… your choice of Dog Poo or Cat Poo.
It was shampoo, apparently, but what moron came up with those names!??
>^,^<
“Cluemobile? You’ve got a pickup…”
OpalCat’s site: http://opalcat.com
The Teeming Millions Homepage: fathom.org/teemingmillions
The “Celeron” chip. I know, accelerate, and all that. But watching a commercial, all I could think was, “Celery?!”
The Drury Inn. The Atomic Burrito.
Didn’t there used to be an dietetic candy called AYDS…that mysteriously went off the market in the 80’s?
–Gail
“Predictable, really I suppose. It was an act of purest optimism to have posed the question in the first place.” --John Cleese
I think there’s a website on horrible translations of brand names and terrible slogans… I’ll look it up for you in a minute.
)Coldfire
“You know how complex women are”
Coldfire
“You know how complex women are”
Well, your hat is on the top of your hear anyway, Coldfire…
George Carlin had a nice skit about product names and what they are:
“If Janitor In A Drum made a douche, no one would buy it!”
My favorite: Raid Feminine Hygene Spray
“RAID!!!”
Yer pal,
Satan
Ranger Jeff
*The Idol of American Youth *
On a tangential topic, sometimes using irony in product names works well.
For example, there’s a skate/snowboard shop near me started a couple years ago by a couple young guys. It’s named “Failure” (as in everyone told them they’d be a …) and it’s now very successful. Keep meaning to get one of their bumperstickers.
Another (grim) example is the “brand” names certain dealers give their drugs: e.g. little heroin packets stamped “Chernobyl” or “black death” or something similar.
Okay, I said the same thing the last time this topic came up, but: Tombstone pizza??? Couldn’t they have come up with something less appetizing?
When I was in college (in the midwest), I always bought Delightful brand toilet paper. And you know what? Is was delightful!
I have read that Scott Adams (the creator of Dilbert) has come up with a food item called the “Dilberito”, a burrito containing 100% of all daily recommended FDA.
Now why would you want to eat only one burrito per day? Might as well concentrate it all into a pill like in a bad science fiction movie.
J’ai assez vécu pour voir que différence engendre haine.
Stendhal
Several years a go I probed a Ford Probe.
Caved the back of that sucker in, and didn’t touch the front of my car ('86 Camero). It was a 25 MPH collision, BTW.
I just found out thatGM had a prototype electric car in the late eighties. It was called the Impact.
You say “cheesy” like that’s a BAD thing.
Anyone remember “Death” brand cigarettes? They came in a black pack that had a skull-and-crossbones in the front. Not very good smokes, but the packaging was great. I don’t know if you can still get them or not.
Let’s not forget Reebok’s briliant idea of naming a woman’s running shoe after a demon that rapes women in their sleep…
Back off, man. I’m a scientist.
I thought that shoe (the Incubus) was made by Nike.
How about the Chevy Nova? After all, “nova” means “exploding star” in Spanish … who wants to by an exploding star for a car? (Just kidding. I figured a UL deserved a pun.)
I always thought Corvette was a pretty funny name for a car. They wanted to name it after a fast warship … and ended up choosing a small, ponderous warship that rolled around in the North Atlantic like a cork.
My dad used to degrease his hands with a product called Goop.
There is a canned bean-and-frank meal known as Beanie Weenie.
Nothing I write about any person or group should be applied to a larger group.
How about “Jolt” cola? “All the caffiene and twice the sugar!” was their motto, IIRC.
“I’d rather have a bottle in front of me that a frontal lobotomy!” - W. Nelson
Jolt is actually a decent name; it does accurately describe the cola’s effect on your average person. (Not that word ‘average’. After a steady diet of Jolt during my freshman year of college, my caffeine tolerance is higher than you’d believe.)
Laugh hard; it’s a long way to the bank.
I almost went to work for someone who, among other things, consulted with businesses about nameing their new products. He actually hired someone with a Ph.D. in linguistics to try to translate the qualties the company wanted to get across into some kind of name. They’d come up with a name like “Luxol” for soap, for example, and then provide a detailed account of how this conveyed just the right aura of “richness and power,” or whatever. Charged 'em a truckload of money for it, too.