Potty Humor

You have to hand it to Poo-Pourri.

“Forever changing the bathroom experience.” Note angel tooting on throne.

For starters, the product has a catchy rhyming slogan: “Spritz the bowl before you go and no one else will ever know!” You just don’t see enough versification in marketing copy nowadays.

I also give Poo-Pourri credit for coming right out and saying “stinky poop smell” instead of some wan euphemism.

And the brand extensions evince what one of my readers once called “dedication to the theme.” To name just a few: Trap-a-Crap (“a natural Before-You-Go spray that takes the odor away”), Déjà Poo (another “before-you-go” spray; what a name!), Heavy Doody (yet another “preemptive bathroom scent”), Pooch-Pourri (spray it on your pet’s coat), and Royal Flush (“the fresh essence of eucalyptus works in synergy with spearmint”). Do I need to add that most of these products are available in gift packaging? For that very special, thick-skinned someone, it goes without saying.

Poo-Pourri is, of course, a pun on “potpourri,” which since the mid-18th century has signified a miscellaneous collection. It often refers specifically to a fragrant medley of dried herbs and flowers. It didn’t start out that way, as the word’s etymology reveals: pot pourri literally means “rotten pot” in French (from Spanish olla podrida, ditto)—the English cognate of pourri is “putrid.”

Which makes Poo-Pourri even more … redolent than you’d first suspect.

More experiments in excremental branding here, here, here, and here.

Hat tip: Nancy Nall.

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P.S. Speaking of potty humor, I recently learned that American Standard, the toilet manufacturer, is headquartered in Piscataway, New Jersey. Yes, Piscataway. Piss. Scat. Away. Well played! Now, if only they had a branch office in Flushing, New York.

Comments

[Licia]

Italian design company Alessi produces a toilet brush called Merdolino: http://www.alessi.com/en/3/1081/bathroom-accessories/merdolino-toilet-brush
To create its name, the diminutive suffixes OL and INO were added to a scatological word and succeded in giving it a positive connotative meaning.

Incidentally, American Standard's address would look very amusing to Italians if it had an additional i, making it PisciataWay – in Italian, "pisciata" means pissing.