Comments on: French – the brand https://languageonthemove.com/french-the-brand/ Multilingualism, Intercultural communication, Consumerism, Globalization, Gender & Identity, Migration & Social Justice, Language & Tourism Mon, 27 May 2019 10:35:50 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9 By: Gag Halfrunt https://languageonthemove.com/french-the-brand/#comment-1600 Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:47:14 +0000 http://www.languageonthemove.com/blog/?p=788#comment-1600 Im pretty sure that this packaging must have been designed for the US and Canada. The bilingual text is a legal requirement in Canada, and not actually a href=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/GratuitousFrench rel=nofollowgratuitous French/a intended to make it look sophisticated. Everything is in English and French (but no other languages), English is the first language you read but both languages are equal in terms of size and the Nutrition Facts box is in US/Canadian style.

The a href=http://www.petitecolier.fr/gamme.htm rel=nofollowdesigns used in France/a are completely different in style, emphasising French tradition and childhood nostalgia by using the standard handwriting that all schoolchildren were required to learn until recently. I think that people in France would find the attempt to reposition the Petit Écolier as a refined masterpiece of the chocolatiers art fairly ridiculous — its just a little biscuit with a slab of chocolate on top, and as commonplace in France as, say, Oreo cookies are in the US.

]]> By: xiaoxiao https://languageonthemove.com/french-the-brand/#comment-1185 Fri, 21 May 2010 12:02:17 +0000 http://www.languageonthemove.com/blog/?p=788#comment-1185 Interesting!
This reminds me one of the advertising strategies in China: the names of some countries or cities are used as brands to promote the products. For example, France is usually associated with love and romance, so “Spring in Paris” sounds a much more attractive name for wedding photography studios than “Spring in Kunming,” even though the latter should be more pleasant than the former from the perspective of weather (Kunming, the capital city of Yunnan province, is best best known for its lovely
weather). “France/French” also indicates feminine delicacy. The phrase of “French formula” is widely used in the advertising of stuff for women such as perfume, beauty soap and other cosmetics. And Germany always goes with fine quality. A catch phrase in advertising is “German quality”. German cars are very popular in China.There is a car ad going “French romance and German quality” –doesn’t this tell everything that can be expected from a car? Another expample is the association of Italy with art. So “Italy/Italian” or “Milan” occur frequently in the advertising of furniture (“European” is also a popular word in furniture ads).
Well, the connections established between these countries and their representative features may be “true” or “factual” in some sense. But if viewed from the perspective of Ingrid’s blog, they sound more like generalised or reduced representations of the images of these countries. Moreover, the repetitive uses of such associations in advertising may make the stereotypes become a natural part of people’s knowledge about other countries. And then people may not even bother to know more or they may not take in information other than the imput from advertising that’s been naturalised. What good can this do to our intercultural communication in general?

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