Some Examples of French Branding
Note, as you look at 'French' brands, how many
of these French (or perhaps only pseudo-French) products have accent
marks, something that English/American brands wouldn't have.
- An ad for a brand called
Façonnable
which is trying to suggest that it is "fashionable" but with a
dubious French brand name: the word is a French word,
but is not used to mean 'fashionable.'. Note that the ad claims that this brand was
designed in France (but not that it originates in France or is
manufactured in France.)
- Use of French more to attract immediate attention than anything else;
first it says it's not a faucet, but the picture says it is. Then it
says, well, okay, it's a step-back-in-time faucet. Pretends to be a work
of art, called (appropriately) Ceci n'est pas
un faucet (faucet not being a French word in any event.) This is a take-off on a
surrealist painting by Magritte, entitled Ceci n'est pas une pipe.
- An ad for a perfume, manufactured by Boucheron
called Jaïpur,
a town in India. The image shows an unclothed woman, bound at the
wrists by the Boucheron container, waiting for someone to do ... what?
- An ad for a product called Théorie,
the French word for 'theory.' The text of the ad says "For every face
problem there's a beautiful solution." Is this supposed to be perhaps
'scientific' or something? Why not call it Solution ?
- An ad series for a product called séxual
which is intended for both men and women.
- An ad for Issey Miyake's
L'eau bleue pour homme. It appears to be the case that Japanese fashion and couture
prefers French branding; it's also the case that Issey Miyake has been resident in France for
many years.
(Note the clever use of blue background.)
- Ads for
Lancôme beauty products, a brand name which has been
deliberately
created to contain the "circumflex" accent over the [o] of
Lancome.
Go to the
Lancôme
Ô oui page to read more about this product and its
'history'. Notice that almost every Lancôme product has an accent
mark of some sort as part of the brand. This
page tells the whole story of
this "circumflex" accent. (See a translation of this page here.) My favorite is the one called
Optim'Âge with a circumflex  in the word for
"age" The French word Âge has a circumflex accent, but when
capitalized, this word doesn't usually contain the circumflex, for aesthetic reasons. Here
it's added just because Lancôme seems to want to use the circumflex as part of their
branding!
Another one is a suntan lotion called Sôleil which means 'sun'
(without a circumflex accent, however) in French. But putting a circumflex on it
gives it cachet, n'est-ce pas? (It also allows them to copyright
the trademark!)
- Here's a page that just lists perfume ads: including the
Ô oui motif, but also including other language perfume ads. Which
languages are used for this, and which not?
- An ad for a `French' beauty product with an improbable (or perhaps
even impossible ) French
name, something called
Originalé ("A woman's power, a man's passion.")
- An ad for a beauty product called
Précision, which again uses an accented vowel to mark
the product as 'foreign.'
- Last, but not least, an animated ("flash") website that takes you to the
Languedoc wine region of southern France. All in English, but wonderful stereotypes of
life in southern France. (Note in the fine print that Red Bicyclette USA is based
in Healdsburg, California.)