Bloomberg Businessweek reported, in its article
For India's Consumers, Pepsi Is the Real Thing published in September 20-26, 2010 issue, that Pepsi became a common synonym for cola in India's most widely spoiken language after having the market to itself in the early 1990s - Pepsi had the Indian market to itself for three years during Coke's absence. The article said that PepsiCo's linguistic advantage translates into higher sales for its namesake cola. "Lalita Desai, a linguist at Jadavpur University who studies how English words enter Indian languages. 'And with no real international competition, 'Pepsi' became this catch-all for anything that was bottled, fizzy, and from abroad.'"
I read this article recently by chance and it reminded me of a blog post I published last month
Coca Cola, Mercedes-Benz and Yosemite, in which I described how that the Chinese translations for
Coca Cola is
可口可乐 (pronounced as:
ke-kou-ke-le), which means
delicious and cheering. The truncated form
Coke was simple
可乐 (
ke-le),
cheering.
This delicious translation of Coke therefore played a very positive role for Coca Cola's sale in China. There, 可乐 (Coke) became this catch-all for anything that was bottled, fizzy, and from abroad, though it has to be dark. Sprite (雪碧 - Snow Bright) represents those fizzy but clear soft drinks.
The power of words!
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