Top 10 Disastrously Named Consumer Goods

You can blame poor translation, unfortunate acronyms or a bad sense of humor for these odd marketing choices. Welcome to WatchMojo.com, and today we’re counting down our picks for the Top 10 Unfortunate Product Names for Consumer Goods.

For this list, we’re looking at those consumer products we’ve thought about purchasing, but whose names cause us to giggle. We’re only interested in real products, so nothing from works of fiction. We’re also excluding novelty products that are designed, first and foremost, to make people laugh. And finally, food products won’t be considered since that’s a list for another day. Note that the products here are not necessarily bad; we’re only interested in evaluating their cringe-worthy names.

It doesn’t matter if you spell it with a “k” or a “c” - it comes out sounding the same when you say it out loud… or put it on a shampoo bottle. When you produce a line of creamy hair care products, you have to assume that people are going to put it in their hair. The intended use of this product, coupled with its unfortunate name, naturally invites a whole slew of dirty jokes that are too cheap and easy to bother making. The product line uses kumquat extract as a key ingredient – which was apparently such a distinguishing feature of this hair care line that the need to put “K-U-M” in the name trumped all business and marketing sense.
 

As later commercials for this product clarified, this isn’t a bad English translation - it employs an intentionally funny name to get your attention. The Tiddy Bear is small plush teddy bear that straps onto your seat belt, sliding up and down to protect you from the dreaded seatbelt chafe. It can rest on your shoulder, or as the infomercial seems to heavily suggest with a whole slew Michael Bay-style cleavage shots, across your chest. In fact, the product generally gets good reviews, and was even given out to audience members by Ellen DeGeneres. But at what point does a silly attention-seeking name undermine people’s faith in the product?

This is just one of those strange ones. Are the manufacturers of this seemingly run of the mill cold medicine intentionally invoking 666, the number of the beast? If so, there are multiple ways to interpret this. They could be looking to corner the Goth, Satanist or even heavy metal healthcare market. Alternatively, this could be an attempt at marketing this product as the right choice for a hellishly bad cold. Either way, it’s hard to imagine that the name helped with sales, especially within more religiously conscious groups. Though having Satan as a commercial figure would certainly get people talking.
 

How delightfully creepy and/or... sexual?  What do you think when you hear the term “pocket fisherman”? A euphemism used by a pervert hiding in the bushes to describe his private parts perhaps? Okay, would you like an alternative interpretation for the less cynical or jaded among you? What if it were a tool for pick pockets, who go “fishing” in the pockets of passers-by? Yet another “as seen on TV” product, this is actually a collapsible fishing rod that’s small enough to fit into a glove compartment. That’s right, it’s unlikely to fit in any pocket short of massive cargo pants. Sounds like a nice not-so-little gift to receive - if it weren't for the name.
 

Looking to put together a gift basket of unfortunately named products for a loved one with a penchant for fishing and dick jokes? You’ve already got the Pocket Fisherman, so why not add a Wunder Boner! In all fairness, if you’ve ever deboned a fish, you’ll know that it is no simple task, especially if you’re inexperienced or don’t have the right tools. The Wunder Boner seemingly facilitates removing bones from a fish - and based on the commercial, any immature wordplay was intentional. Marketing 101 states that you should “know your target market”. If the product gets the job done and your target demographic is a couple of dudes on a fishing trip, who can blame them for throwing in a cheap laugh?

Honestly, just talking about this product feels like we’re navigating a minefield. Unfortunately, this particular kind of detector isn’t designed to help users avoid metaphorical landmines. What does this product do... and what were they thinking when they named it? It’s actually a portable vibration-measuring device used to check heavy machinery for imbalances, bearing damage, and alignment errors. Thankfully, the FAG Detector is a niche product, as it’s only really sold to other businesses in the industrial sector, and in those circles, the “FAG” imprint is well respected. That’s good news, because if it were a widely available product, you can bet some deeply unfunny homophobic uncle would be buying it for his nephew who attends an all boys private school.

This is one of the biggest products on our list, so it would seem that unfortunate naming hasn’t held it back. Created and founded in 1992 by an Australian woman to meet her daughter’s desire to wax her arms with less pain, it’s gone on to become one of the leading hair removal products in the world. However, “nads” is a slang term often used for testicles, popularly used in sentences such as “oh man, that guy got hit right in the nads!” The success of Nad’s as a business just goes to show that a great product can indeed overcome a questionable name.
 

More often than not, a poorly named product doesn’t hurt anyone but the investors.  But when a successful seller of mp3 players, TrekStor, released the newest model of their popular “i.Beat” line and named it “blaxx”, people were understandably shocked and seriously offended. It was clearly a mistake on the part of the German company. What sane marketing department would intentionally commit brand suicide by invoking racial violence? But… it’s still hard to understand how they missed the obvious phonetic pronunciation of their newest product. According to an official apology letter from the vice president, it was named “blaxx” because of its “elegant black piano finish”. They changed the name soon after issuing an apology.
 

This heavy duty insect repellent makes a number of big claims. It promises tropical strength protection and is used by the Armed Forces. It also advertises itself as being “maxi-strength deet”, which, wilderness enthusiasts can clarify, is not a real measurement of Diethyltoluamide, but more akin to answering “a lot!”. But with a real concentration of 346g/kg of DEET, this is honestly some seriously potent insect repellent. The only issue? The fact that “WACK OFF!” is written three times bigger than anything else on this tube full of gel. We shudder to think of the poor soul who read that label too quickly late one night.

Before we unveil our top pick, here are a few honorable mentions.
- Anusol
- ‘Alien vs. Predator’: Child Predator Hands
- Johnson’s Bitch Spray
- Retardex Fluoride Free Toothpaste
 

Where to begin with this product? Probably with general advice to all aspiring product marketers out there that “pussycat” is a cute way to refer to a feline. But you can’t take the word “cat” away and expect people to still understand. We can chalk up this lengthy name to a series of bad translations that serendipitously came together in one truly awful name. “24H Intensive” wouldn’t be so bad if it weren’t followed by those next two words. We can only assume that “wind” was supposed to mean that it’s an aerosol spray...? But by the time you read “Hello Kitty” and understand that that’s the pussy they were referring to… it’s much too late.

Do you agree with our list? What’s the most unfortunately named product you’ve ever encountered? For more oddball top 10s published every day, be sure to subscribe to WatchMojo.com.