Re-branding can be difficult.

Jif cleaning products became Cif (try pronouncing ‘jif’ with a Spanish ‘j’ and see how the European marketing team may have struggled) in 2001, while Mum’s favourite Olay facial products can be called Oil of Ulan, Oil of Ulay or Oil of Olay, depending on where she’s washing her face.

It’s not just cleaning products, though.

The humble kiwifruit (née Chinese gooseberry) was briefly known as a melonette until canny marketers in NZ coined a term that was both cute and evocative of their Land of the Long White Cloud. It also meant the producers avoided US import tariffs on melons and berries.  And so in 1959, the kiwi (fruit, as opposed to the flightless bird) was born.

Kiwifruit are now available in three colours (below left), and for those concerned about the fuzz (like the little chap above), there’s always the hairless kiwi berries/baby kiwis, which are still struggling to find a suitably catchy name.

Kiwi photo from Terry Border who bends stuff, plus he has a book for people into food and bent wire in disconcerting arrangements. Baby kiwi photo from Sifu_Renka. Kiwi types from vovchychko.