What's in a Name?

In its attempt to more successfully market the cheap and plentiful cod substitute, pollack, British supermarket Sainsbury's will now call it by its French name ‘colin.' While pollack caught in British waters is in great demand with the French as ‘colin,' British consumers aren't as impressed. Retailers believe shoppers are embarrassed to ask for pollack because of its widely known reputation as a cheaper white fish than cod in the same way people may not be proud to show off their generic or private label goods over well-known national brands. 

I don't know how much sense this revamped marketing plan makes though.

First of all, everyone will know that colin is the fish formerly known as pollack so it doesn't take a secret decoder ring to know the shopper who asks for ‘colin' is, in fact, asking for pollack so I don't know how a name change removes the embarrassment factor. Think about it. People are often embarrassed to buy condoms so if we decide to rename condoms to ‘dongbrellas' and market them so everyone knows that condoms are no longer called condoms but rather ‘dongbrellas,' well then won't the shy guy still be somewhat blushing to ask the pharmacist for a pack of dongbrellas that are really ‘wink, wink' condoms?

Also, let's consider the NAME Sainsbury's chose: ‘colin' which is pronounced like ‘colan' with a long o so it sounds more like ‘colon' as in your colon not ‘colin' like Firth or Farrell. You can listen to the Guardian's audio story to hear what I mean. I realize they adopted the French name hoping it'd make the fish just as popular in the UK as it is in France, but did anyone consider that French ‘colin' sounds a lot like a very unappetizing human body part: colon.

So who's up for some fresh fish with a name that conjures up an association with a human rectum? I doubt the snazzy packaging is going to put that out of mind in a society laden with references to colon cleansing, colonoscopy, and colorectal cancer but maybe the campaign won't bite Sainsbury's in the ass after all.