Bad Product Naming: All-Star Edition

Let's say you're a big retail chain introducing bedroom furniture for six-year-old girls. What would you call your new product line?

How about "Lolita"?

That was indeed the appallingly moronic choice of Woolworths stores in the UK , which evidently have a Hire-the-Culturally-Illiterate employment policy. The chain announced today that it is withdrawing the "Lolita Midsleeper Combi" from sale.

Here's the quote that had me clutching my forehead in despair:

A spokesman said: "What seems to have happened is the staff who run the website had never heard of Lolita, and to be honest no one else here had either.

"We had to look it up on Wikipedia. But we certainly know who she is now."

Read the entire article for more examples of bad ideas in kiddie product development and naming, such as the Zyklon rollercoaster at Brighton's Palace Pier.

Hat tip to Qwghlm.

Comments

[Shaping Youth]

Unfreakin' believable...I put your link in the comments section of my powdered 'ice' post (Icebreaker Pac that resembles cocaine) here on Shaping Youth:
http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=1065

Oh, and you guessed it, Hershey claimed it was misconstrued...

I'd write a post about it, but my original post on Target got so trivialized into a 'one ad' context attracting trolls/tripe that I've had to shut down comments.

btw, Nancy, did I ever send you the original post (NOT the 'soundbite version' in the NYT?) If not, here 'tis, buried in my back pages from almost a month ago now...
http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=969

I've learned a lot about hijacked conversations...