As host and master chef Andrew Wheeler shopped for groceries this afternoon, I was at liberty to browse the aisles for interesting products. When my wife and I lived in France, going shopping almost always involved stumbling across an amusingly-named product of some type. It’s quite challenging to market a product in a foreign culture and find just the right name, a title that means something close to the original while having the desired affect in the local environment. Occasionally these efforts produce slightly odd results, such as a certain sport drink:
I think you’re supposed to have a nice can of Sweat after your workout, but this case of localization gone wrong seems unlikely to appeal to the native English-speaker. Something that just might do that, however, is this body wash:
I’ve had my share of sexy musk fantasies but I had no idea they could bottle the sexiest one and put it on a shelf. The fact that it is long lasting just increases the appeal, does it not? It’s interesting to discover such products, and others that you had no idea existed, such as those intended for specific markets foreign to your experience.
I’ve looked up the names of the local garb and found the female outfits (abaya, chador, burqa) but not found the name of the outfit the men wear. I thought I’d identified it from this product as a gathra, but wikipedia only reports on a Dungeons and Dragons beast. Whatever the white outfit is called, there is a detergent for it, as there is for abayas, though that one comes in a pink bottle.
I’m not sure why this one struck my funny bone, but it did.
I think it’s because the chosen name seems to have so little to do with a processed cheese cream spread, yet the label is so warm, clean and friendly for a product called Puck. I chose not to sample Puck. I was sorely tempted to try this one, though:
Why waste $40 on a small bottle of designer cologne when this generous portion of Blue Moon only costs $6? That’s half a liter of fragrant goodness. And it’s NEW. Apparently the old one didn’t smell so good.
One thing I found very interesting was that ALL of the diaper packaging, including but not limited to diaper brands familiar to any American parent, had Arabic writing next to the English but never a photo of a child who wasn’t fair skinned and blue eyed. Maybe there’s a job opportunity to photograph Arab babies for diaper packaging.
I wanted an iPad, and I wanted to challenge myself, but I could not come up with mind clear enough to acquire 20 riyals of tea. Bummer. I know what I need! Some of these:
Just imagine how clear a mind I could grow with one of those…
