Industry | 2010.08.31
Shopping and FCUKing | Ariane Sherine
I like innuendo as much as the next woman – but please, not when I\'m after a fat-free yoghurt
Yesterday I went to Westfield , London\'s new-ish gigantic shopping centre, where I bought something to eat from a salad bar called Tossed. The man who served me wore a T-shirt declaring "I am a tosser", while the cashier\'s shirt read "Can I toss 4 u?". I half-expected my receipt to end with "U have been tossed off".
Later I ventured downstairs, where I was visually assaulted by a luminous white-and-pink hub called Snog, selling frozen yoghurt. I don\'t know about you, but I don\'t want to think about other people\'s saliva while I\'m trying to eat dessert. On purchasing a yoghurt for the purposes of this piece, I received a card bearing the headline "Tell us about your first snog". Underneath it read: "So, you\'ve just had your very first Snog. We\'d love to hear how it was for you. Was it as lovely as you imagined? Could it have been even lovelier? Are you tempted to try it again? Would you do it differently next time? Don\'t be shy, use this space to express yourself."
Obediently, I wrote: "Snog is a daft name for a yoghurt shop. I like innuendo and puns as much as the next woman – no, infinitely more – but there is really no need to publicly sexualise a frozen dessert. It would be \'even lovelier\' if you called it something sensible; only a name change may render me \'tempted to try it again\'. And if I wanted to visit your website, I would be very reluctant to type in ifancyasnog.com." (Then I felt guilty about handing it in to the staff, who clearly had no part in Snog\'s naming, so I shoved it in my pocket and slunk off.)
It\'s true that no name is going to please everyone. Pret a Manger is undeniably pretentious, while EAT is reminiscent of a futuristic totalitarian state where people are herded into different areas and ordered to DRINK, TALK and THINK. Pizza Hut, Bella Pasta and Spaghetti House are practical but decidedly unimaginative.
And some brands are risque without even trying: Italian fridge manufacturer Smeg was no doubt completely unaware of the jokes that would ensue when it named its company.
Still, I suspect that the trend for fnar-fnar names – which was probably started by French Connection\'s FCUK in the 1990s – will continue for some time to come. I wearily await the arrival of Shag (a carpet store), Knob (selling home furnishings), Dong (doorbells and clocks) and Fist (gloves and mittens). Chairmakers will offer a "stool sample", and spectacle manufacturers will offer rimming. It will all be endlessly hilarious, but hopefully by this point I will be dead.
So what were the owners of Snog and Tossed thinking? Possibly that they were giving their outlets memorable names that would raise a laugh – names that people would talk about and write about, giving them more publicity.
The latter is empirically true, and yet I can\'t help but think that they\'re limiting their purchasing demographic to the under-30s. Rude shop names are funny solely to 13- to 19-year-olds, and most teenagers don\'t have much money. Nor, in my experience, do they particularly want to eat wholesome salads and healthy fat-free yoghurts, regardless of how many sniggers the product names might elicit.
No, the target bracket for these products is 30 and older. So if we\'re going down the memorable name route, the owners would be far better off calling their premises "Garden Shed", "Early Retirement" or "Afternoon Nap". Yes, they\'re incongruous, but no more so than the chain of coffee bars called Apostrophe . Though if the latter are promoting good grammar, and their menu consequently doesn\'t advertise "coffee\'s", I\'m all for it.
• This article was amended on 30 August 2010. The original referred to Smeg as a Swedish company. It is in fact Italian. This has now been corrected
For more information, please visit
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/[...]9/shopping-and-fcuking-inuendo
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