Fresh is the new cool
Are ya down with the marketing droid buzzwords?
Surely, even a worker bee product-obsessed consumer such as yourself realizes the inherent synergetic worth of value-added distributor partners who leverage sticky initiatives in order to maximize strategic mindshare solutions while utilizing customized functionalities of impactful platforms which, of course, allows dynamic client communities to architect vertical ROI.
Open your wallet.
Now, it’s fairly easy to keep up on the latest whatever “cool” phrase is being passed around the cacophony of advertisements slowly driving you insane. New word constructions catch flame all the time, finding themselves soon adopted across the sales biosphere. Usually, it’s in your own language.
Not in Romania, where the true hipster just dashes on a little English here and a little English there. From a self-centered point of view, I admit there is some comfort in seeing lots of English words being used in advertisements, product labels, information signs, websites, and so forth. It adds to the sense of familiarity. The downside is that the current blitzkrieg of anglo lexicon could have a debilitating effect on Romanian culture. (Not that I propose any ludicrous courriels, of course.)
You see, in Romania, the simple word “fresh” is apparently the golden key to open the doors of your wildest dreams about revenue streams who dance to the tune of cash register dings and credit card authorized bleeps.
Since Romanians seem to love America so much, the international corporations just borrowed a page right out of the United States playbook. Fresh works seems to work well in 49 states (heck, Alaska is so darn cold, it’s impossible for anything to not be fresh), so they just imported the word into Romania and slapped across all the labels.
Domestos can give your toilet that Apple Fresh… taste? Yuck. At least, it “Kills All Known Germs” which is very comforting to the overwhelming percentage of Romanians who have no idea what in the world that blurb even means.
Tide (oh, yes, they have Tide here) is a wonderful Alpine Fresh smell. We all know what a relief that can be, since we intuitively appreciate the freshness of alpines, right? Bueller? Bueller? Again, the vast majority have no understanding of the words, at all.
Glade’s popular “After The Rain” scented room deodorizer both freshens and fragrances. Yup, you got it. Not only does it have the bombdiggity ability to freshen, but it also is endowed with the rare gift of being able to fragrance… fragrancize… fragranciate…
Astera takes the cake, though. Romanians can see the box says it is toothpaste, which is very helpful to the few college students who know what the words tooth and paste mean. I suppose it’s not terribly important if there is toothpaste inside because it has some ultra-exciting swooshy font stuff happening to give you that Fresh MultiEffect. Wow! I bet you’re feeling jealous right now.
Why stop the fun there? It goes on.
Astera clearly has to fire someone because they accidentallly included one Romanian word on the packaging. “Caries” is the term for cavities. So, if I understand properly, one of the fresh multieffects of Astera is to give you cavities. Oooh, where do I sign up for that?! But, wait! There’s more! If you order now, through this exclusive promotional offer, they’ll even give you tartar! How awesome is that, eh?
Fortunately, Astera does give you healthy gums and that’s very important because all Romanians obviously know the word healthy and the word gums. Moving right along, we come across whitening, which is a wonderful benefit the consumer doesn’t understand.
And, then, we hit paydirt… Double Fresh! My friends, that is truly a wonder to behold. In fact, while you are probably in front of your screen paralyzed with amazement as you try to comprehend the sheer vastness of the meaning with your mouth agape, I will take this opportunity to end on a high note so that I can join my non-English speaking Romanian friends in applying this double freshness to myself!
