English CC by Charles Baluyot
You can blame poor translation, unfortunate acronyms
or a bad sense of humor for these odd marketing choices.
Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today,
we're counting down our picks,
for the "Top 10 Unfortunate Product Names For Consumer Goods".
"When cold weather fun leads to chest cold discomfort,
just rub on "Ben-Gay"
to bring sore aching muscles
quick soothing radiant action relief."
For this list, we're looking at those consumer products,
we thought about purchasing,
but whose names cause us to giggle.
We're only interested in real products,
so nothing from works of fiction.
We're also excluding novelty products,
to that are designed first and foremost,
to make people laugh.
And finally, food products won't be considered since
that's a list for another day.
Note: That the products here are not
necessarily bad, we're only interested
in evaluating their cringe-worthy names.
"Now with the "Tiddy Bear,"
I really enjoy traveling again."
"Nothing seem to work,
until I found K.U.M hair care products."
Doesn't matter if you spell it with a K or a C,
it comes out sounding the same when you say it out loud...
...or put it in a shampoo bottle.
When you produce a line of creamy hair care products,
you have to assume that people
are going to put it in their hair.
The intended use of this product,
coupled with its unfortunate name,
naturally invites a whole slew of dirty jokes,
that are just too cheap and easy to bother making.
"I want to get the shampoo she's using..."
The product line uses kumquat extract, as a key ingredient,
which was apparently such a distinguishing feature of this hair care line,
that the need to put K-U-M in the name
trumped all business and marketing sense.
"K.U.M hair care products really do work,
you'll definitely turn heads when you have K.U.M in your hair."
"Does the shoulder strap in your car cut into your shoulder?"
"When you travel is your shoulder strap too tight and annoying?"
"Introducing the Tiddy Bear!"
As later commercials for this product clarified,
this isn't a bad English translation.
It employs an intentionally funny name
to get your attention.
"That's T-I-D-D-Y bear, the cute little guy
that eliminates all those irritating shoulder strap problems."
The Tiddy Bear is a small plush teddy bear,
that straps onto your seat belt sliding up and down,
to protect you from the dreaded seatbelt chafe.
It can rest on your shoulder,
or as the infomercial seems too heavily suggest,
with a whole slew of Michael Bay-style cleavage shots across your chest.
"So it snuggles comfortably to your needs."
In fact, the products generally gets good reviews,
and was even given out to audience members by Ellen DeGeneres.
But at what point,
does a silly attention-seeking name undermine
people's faith in the product?
"If you're in and out of your car all day like I am,
you're really going to enjoy the comfort of the Tiddy Bear."
This is just one of those strange ones.
Are the manufacturers of this seemingly run-of-the-mill
cold medicine intentionally invoking 666 the
number of the beast?
If so, there are multiple ways to interpret this,
they could be looking to corner of the goth,
Satanist,
or even heavy metal health care market.
Alternatively, this could be an attempt
at marketing this product,
as the right choice for a hellishly bad cold.
Either way, it's hard to imagine,
that the name help with sales,
especially within more religiously conscious groups.
Ned Flanders: "Not on my watch!"
Though having Satan is a commercial figure
would certainly get people talking.
"I am Satan.
I am your guard now."
"It's the fishing invention of the century,
Popeil's Pocket Fisherman."
How delightfully creepy and/or sexual.
What do you think when you hear the term,
"pocket fisherman"?
A euphemism is used by
a pervert hiding in the bushes
to describe his private parts, perhaps?
Okay, would you like an alternative interpretation
for the less cynical and jaded among you?
What if it were a tool for pickpockets?
Who go "fishing" in the pockets of passers-by.
Yet another "As Seen on TV" product
thid is actually a collapsible fishing rod,
that small enough to fit into a glove compartment.
That's right, it's unlikely to fit in any pockets,
short of massive cargo pants.
Sounds like a nice "not so little gift" to receive,
if it weren't for the name.
"Expert or amateur will love Pocket Fisherman,
and does it catch fish!"
"Can you think of a more exciting gift,
for junior or dad that just $19.95?"
"Okay..."
"Who wants to clean and de-bone 'em?"
"I'll do it!"
"What gives? You want to do it?"
"Just when you see what I've got..."
"It's the Wunder Boner!"
Looking to put together,
a gift basket of unfortunately named products for a loved one with a penchant
for fishing and dick jokes?
You already got the Pocket Fisherman,
so why not add a Wunder Boner?
In all fairness, if you've ever deboned a fish,
you'll know that it's no simple task,
especially if you're inexperienced
or don't have the right tools.
The Wunder Boner seemingly facilitates removing bones from a fish
and based on the commercial, any immature wordplay was intentional.
"Wow!"
"The Wunder Boner!"
"My wife would like that!"
Marketing 101 states, "that you should
know your target market".
If the product gets the job done and your target demographic
is a couple of dudes on a fishing trip
who can blame them for throwing in a cheap laugh?
"I think the Wunder boner is a winner!"
"So, ahh... Dave, where they did you get the Wunder Boner?"
"It's funny you should ask!"
"Order your wonder boulder now!"
Honestly, just talking about this product,
feels like we're navigating a minefield.
Unfortunately, this particular kind of detector
isn't designed to help users
avoid metaphorical landmines.
What does this product do
and what were they thinking when they named it?
It's actually a portable vibration measuring device
used to check heavy machinery for imbalances, bearing damage,
and alignment errors.
Thankfully, the FAG Detector is an niche product,
as it's only really sold to other businesses in the industrial sector
and in those circles, the FAG Imprint is well-respected.
That's good news, because if it were a widely available product,
you can bet some deeply, unfunny homophobic uncle,
would be buying it for his nephew,
who attends an all-boys private school.
"Nad's, voted best brand and hair removal by real people."
This is one of the biggest products on our list,
so it would seem that unfortunate naming, hasn't held it back.
Created and founded in 1992 by an Australian woman,
to meet her daughter's desire to wax her arms with less pain.
It's gone on to become one of the leading hair removal products in the world.
However, nads is a slang term
often used for testicles.
Popularly used in sentences like,
"Oh, man that guy just got hit right in the nads!".
The success of Nad's as a business,
just goes to show that a great product,
can indeed overcome a questionable name.
More often than not,
a poorly named product doesn't hurt anyone but the investors.
But, when a successful seller of MP3 players TrekStor,
released the newest model of their popular i.beat line,
and named it blaxx,
people were understandably shocked and seriously offended.
It was clearly a mistake on the part of the German company.
What same marketing department,
would intentionally commit brand suicide by invoking racial violence?
But it's still hard to understand,
how they missed the obvious phonetic pronunciation of their newest product.
"All the big words are spelled
*in unison*: phonetically."
According to an official apology letter from the vice president,
"It was named "blaxx" because of its elegant black piano finish".
They changed the name soon after issuing an apology.
This heavy-duty insect repellent,
makes a number of big claims...
...it promises tropical strength protection
and is used by the armed forces.
It also advertises itself,
as being, "MAXI-STRENGTH DEET",
which, wilderness enthusiasts can clarify,
is not a real measurement of diethyltoluamide,
but more akin to answering a lot.
But with a real concentration of 346 g/kg of DEET,
this is honestly some seriously potent insect repellent!
The only issue,
the fact that "WACK OFF!"
is written three times bigger than anything else on this tube full of gel.
We shudder think of the poor soul,
who read that label to quickly late one night...
Before we unveil our number one pick,
here are some honorable mentions.
"When my husband has a hemorrhoid flare up,
you think he was a bear."
"More doctors recommend Annusol
suppositories for hemorrhoids."
"The question should be..."
"What do you do?"
"Oh, um... everything you can."
"But,
I'm not called, RetarDEX."
Where to begin with this product?
Probably with general advice to all aspiring product marketers out there,
that pussycat is a cute way to refer to a feline.
But you can't take the word "cat" away
and expect people to still understand.
We can chuck this lengthy name up to a series of bad translations,
that serendipitously came together
into one truly awful name.
"24h intensive" wouldn't be so bad,
if it weren't followed by those next two words.
We can only assume that "wind",
was supposed to mean that it's an aerosol spray?
But by the time you read "Hello Kitty",
understand that that's the pussy they're referring to?
It's much too late.
Do you agree with our list?
What's the most unfortunately named product you've ever encountered?
For more odd ball "Top 10s" published everyday,
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