What is in a name? Well, some Shakespeare chap had quite a lot to say about it once. Plus, there are marketing folks who get the big bucks for making grown adults say words like "Snuggie" or "PediPaws," so there must be something to it.
Yet, ya ever buy a product, use it for forever, and then suddenly really think about it?
Like, half your life, you've been using this product every day and ZOT! In a lighting-bolt moment, you wonder: "Wha-? What the heck's that all about?"
Yeah, that's this post. Like the Infusium conditioner bottle...
Or In(fus)ium, rather.
What is with the gratuitous parenthesis? Have they been Hooked on Phonics as a part of some obscure reading literacy cult?...
Are we supposed to say that part of the word in more hushed tones? The way our grandmothers would whisper words like "female problems" or "cancer"?
This has to be the only product on the market who hopes you'll not only buy their product, but also diagram it in a sentence.
I mean, I'm a grammar nerd, so I'm totally down with that. But still-- the shower isn't really the place for clear thought on prepositional phrases and simple predicates...
No chalkboard, you see.
Note the wholly unnecessary word at the top of the bottle: (moistur)ologie. The, er... French study of moisture. Is that, like, a class you can take at the Barbizon Beauty Academy or something? (Moistur)ologie 200? You take it right after Ear(comb)ing Physiques 101 and (Mullet)ectomie 130.
Then I started questioning a product that's been around longer than most of our grandparents...
Head & Shoulders. We all know it, it's a household name. But isn't the name just a tad overly-ambitious? I mean, what on earth went on in that first marketing brainstorming session?
After that, they went to work on the athlete's foot cream, "Toe & Ankle," the eyedrops product, "Retina & Eyelash" and the nosespray, "Septum & Sinus."
I see them all sitting around the table: "So what shall we call this new dandruff shampoo?"
"Well, it's for the head," one enterprising marketing exec would say. (We'll call him Adman A.)
And everybody nods at the wisdom of this statement. "For the head... yes, yes, excellent..."
Adman B: "But all shampoos are for the head!"
A moment of depression settles over the room.
Adman A: "Ah, but ours is so powerful it will encompass the whole, er, headal-neckal-shoulderial region!"
Adman B: "How's it do that?"
Adman A: "Well... er... some people have longer hair than others. Plus, we want to let everyone know how much better it is than the competition. We'll call it... Head & Shoulders!"
"Brilliant!"
Those last three products really didn't take off as well as they were hoping.
Of course, it's also highly possible the name was intended to be a subtle indicator to men with hairy backs that by using this product, they can have smooth, silky and flake-free backhair.
Unfortunately, I have not been blessed with back hair, so I realize I'm only using 50% of this product's full potential.
Head & Shoulders then got me thinking about our local restaurant chain, Eat 'n Park. At first, when I moved to Western PA, and I'd hear people talking about this, I thought they were saying "Eaton Park."
Sounded classy. Like some upscale housing development with lawn art restrictions.
But it turned out, Eat 'n Park's a family restaurant, sort of like Kings or Denny's. So you go there and first you eat and... then you park?
Now me, personally, I prefer to park, then eat. Saves on gas. Unless we're talking the 50s phrase "parking," meaning "making out in the car.:
Which, now I think about it, could explain some of Eat 'N Park's continued popularity. In the 1950s, Lover's Lane might have seen a serious drop-off in attendance once word of a make-out restaurant got around.
Last, I just wanted to share with you all why I am not fit for high society...
See these? I bought these. Never, ever put me in charge of choosing wines, or whatever has cheerful packaging will win out.
I mean, I'm in marketing myself. I know better. But someone could pretty much create a new vintage called Chateau de Arsenic 2009 and if it were in a fun bottle, I'd be looking at it in the store, "Ah, adorable! This must make it a fine vintage worthy of consumption!"
Actually, these weren't too bad. Only, as proven, I know absolutely nothing about wines. Pepto-pink packaging and cartoon sheep are enough to sway me.
"Yes, Madame, we have an excellent Dom Perignon available today..."
"Ah, mais non, Monsieur. Not por moi. Instead, I sink I shall have... zat pink one."
Do you folks know any product names that make you say, "Huh?"
Does anyone else get caught up in the moment of good-lookin' packaging? I'd enjoy chatting about it in a moment of pleasant (humour)ologie and (camarad)erie.
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