Foreign branding

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In advertising and marketing, foreign branding is the use of foreign or foreign-sounding brand names for companies, goods, and services to imply they are of foreign origin, generally to make them appear to come from a place that seems attractively fitting, or at least exotic. It may also be done if the country of origin has a poor image, in order to make customers believe that a company and/or its products originate from a country seen more favourably. [1]

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In non-English-speaking countries, many brands use English- or American-styled names to suggest foreign origin. In non-French- and non-Italian-speaking countries, many cosmetics, toiletry, and apparel brands use French- or Italian-styled names. Names suggesting Japanese, Scandinavian, German, and other origins are similarly used for effect outside their home countries.

English-speaking countries

In non-English-speaking countries

Foreign orthography

Foreign letters and diacritical marks (such as the umlaut) are often used to give brand names foreign flavor. The heavy metal umlaut is used by a number of rock bands, usually to impart a generally Germanic and Gothic overtone to the band's name. Examples include Mötley Crüe, Motörhead, Queensrÿche, and Blue Öyster Cult. [10] [11] [12]

Some fonts, sometimes called simulation typefaces, have also been designed that represent the characters of the Roman alphabet but evoke another writing system. This group includes typefaces designed to appear as Arabic, Chinese characters, Cyrillic, Indic scripts, Greek, Hebrew, Kana, or Thai. These are used largely for the purpose of novelty to make something appear foreign, or to make businesses such as restaurants offering foreign food clearly stand out. [13] [14]

Characters chosen for visual resemblance

Greek characters in Latin contexts

  • The Greek sigma, Σ, is often used for Latin E, although it is the equivalent of Latin S. Examples include the film My Big Fat Greek Wedding (stylized as My Big Fat GRΣΣK Wedding), ABC Family's college-set series Greek (TV series) (stylized as GRΣΣK), and the slogan WΣ ARΣ HAPPY TO SΣRVΣ YOU on the Anthora coffee cup. Papers Please also uses Sigma to represent E, even though the game takes place in a place based on Russia.
  • The lower-case Greek lambda, λ, was used for Latin A in the video game Hλlf-Life , apparently in reference to the use of λ as the symbol for the decay constant (related to the concept of half-life), and unlike most uses of foreign branding, not at all representing Greece or its culture.
  • Omega is sometimes used as a replacement for O, like in the God of War franchise.
  • Lowercase letter "u" is often substituted for "μ" when the Greek character is not typographically available; for example the unit "microfarad", correctly "μF", is often rendered as "uF" or "ufarad" in technical documents.

Cyrillic characters in Latin contexts

  • Cyrillic Ya, Я, and I, И, resemble the reversed Latin letters R and N, respectively, and are often used as such. Examples include the video game TETЯIS.
  • Cyrillic De, Д, is sometimes used in place of the Latin A, as in the film BORДT.

Other scripts

Hebrew foreign branding; note the use of actual Hebrew letters alef A (for X) and shin SH (for W). Faux Hebrew.png
Hebrew foreign branding; note the use of actual Hebrew letters alef א (for X) and shin ש (for W).
  • The London-based sushi restaurant YO! Sushi uses a typeface that makes the Y and O look like the Japanese katakana letters and (romaji: ri and ku).
  • Letters of the Hebrew alphabet can be used to evoke Jewish culture in Faux Hebrew fonts.
  • The television series Stargate SG-1 and Stargate Atlantis use a glyph resembling Å in marketing materials, thus "STARGÅTE SG-1" and "STARGATE ATLÅNTIS", respectively. This usage derives from the symbol representing Earth on the titular Stargate, and is unrelated to the letter as used in the Swedish alphabet (which is pronounced similar to English "o").

Diacritics and foreign spellings

Characters chosen by keyboard or encoding match

Where different keyboard layouts or character encodings map different scripts to the same key positions or code points, directly converting matching characters provides an alternative to transliteration when the appearance, rather than the meaning, is desired.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Diacritic</span> Modifier mark added to a letter

A diacritic is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek διακριτικός, from διακρίνω. The word diacritic is a noun, though it is sometimes used in an attributive sense, whereas diacritical is only an adjective. Some diacritics, such as the acute ⟨á⟩, grave ⟨à⟩, and circumflex ⟨â⟩, are often called accents. Diacritics may appear above or below a letter or in some other position such as within the letter or between two letters.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ø</span> Letter of the Latin alphabet used in the Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, and Southern Sámi languages

Ø is a letter used in the Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, and Southern Sámi languages. It is mostly used as to represent the mid front rounded vowels, such as and, except for Southern Sámi where it is used as an diphthong.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Metal umlaut</span> Gratuitous diacritic used in the names of some rock bands

A metal umlaut is a diacritic that is sometimes used gratuitously or decoratively over letters in the names of mainly hard rock or heavy metal bands—for example, those of Blue Öyster Cult, Queensrÿche, Motörhead, the Accüsed, Mötley Crüe and the parody bands Spın̈al Tap and Green Jellÿ.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Baskin-Robbins</span> US international ice cream parlor chain

Baskin-Robbins is an American multinational chain of ice cream and cake specialty shops owned by Inspire Brands. Baskin-Robbins was founded in 1945 by Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins in Glendale, California. Its headquarters are in Canton, Massachusetts, and shared with sibling brand Dunkin' Donuts. It is the world's largest chain of ice cream specialty stores, with more than 8,000 locations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Häagen-Dazs</span> American ice cream brand

Häagen-Dazs is an American ice cream brand, established by Reuben and Rose Mattus in the Bronx, New York, in 1960. Starting with only three flavors: vanilla, chocolate, and coffee, the company opened its first retail store in Brooklyn, New York, on November 15, 1976. The Pillsbury food conglomerate bought Häagen-Dazs in 1983, and now the brand is sold worldwide, as cartons, ice cream bars, ice cream cakes, sorbet, frozen yogurt, and gelato.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pillsbury (brand)</span> American food processing company

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Faux Cyrillic</span> Using Cyrillic letters to represent Latin ones

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dreyer's</span> American ice cream manufacturer

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Frusen Glädjé was a company that made premium ice cream for the American market, founded in 1980 by Richard E. Smith. Although the ice cream was made in the U.S., it used a quasi-Swedish name: frusen glädje, without the acute accent, is Swedish for "frozen happiness".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Green tea ice cream</span> Japanese ice cream flavor

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Diacritical marks of two dots¨, placed side-by-side over or under a letter, are used in a number of languages for several different purposes. The most familiar to English-language speakers are the diaeresis and the umlaut, though there are numerous others. For example, in Albanian, ë represents a schwa. Such diacritics are also sometimes used for stylistic reasons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Houlihan's</span> Casual dining chain founded in 1972

Houlihan's is an American casual restaurant and bar chain with locations operating throughout the country, 60% of which are franchised. It is headquartered in Leawood, Kansas. The first Houlihan's opened on April 1, 1972, in Kansas City's Country Club Plaza, and there are now 35 restaurants in 15 states. It was originally named Houlihan's Old Place because it was first located in the space of Houlihans Clothing Store.

Arthur Schiff was one of the least known but most influential promoters of American kitsch products.

Reuben and Rose Mattus were Polish-Jewish entrepreneurs who founded the Häagen-Dazs ice cream business in the United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Umlaut (diacritic)</span> Diacritic mark to indicate sound shift

Umlaut is a name for the two dots diacritical mark as used to indicate in writing the result of the historical sound shift due to which former back vowels are now pronounced as front vowels.

The country-of-origin effect (COE), also known as the made-in image and the nationality bias, is a psychological effect describing how consumers' attitudes, perceptions and purchasing decisions are influenced by products' country of origin labeling, which may refer to where: a brand is based, a product is designed or manufactured, or other forms of value-creation aligned to a country. Since 1965, it has been extensively studied by researchers.

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References

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