When we first arrived in Korea, and I saw Pocari Sweat on sale in vending machines and convenience stores, I laughed and mocked them and swore that I would never drink it. I tried it once, but the combination of the off-putting name and the fact that it actually looks like bottled sweat was too much for my mind to handle, and I hated it.
After a while, though, if you see something enough it starts to become ordinary. At some point the name of a product just becomes that product and nothing else, and the words don't have any other meaning outside of it.
So it was with Pocari Sweat. Lisa and I both have grown quite fond of it, and drink it regularly after a workout or on a hike. It doesn't have as much sugar as other sports drinks like Gatorade or Powerade (both of which are sold in Korea, though only in one flavor) and I have to admit it is quite refreshing.
Interesting; I keep forgetting to ask - how prevalent is English in product marketing (such as this example?)
ReplyDeleteEnglish is used often to market products, usually as a single short phrase. Usually it makes sense, but there are a lot of T-shirt designs that incorporate nonsensical English. Koreans don't like clothing with Korean on it, for some reason, even though they often don't understand the English on the clothes that they do wear.
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