Géant, a hard name!
| During my presence in Tunisia, I’ve visited the recently opened Géant hypermarket. On my way and while approaching the TunisCity complex where the store is located, I saw their outside sign and I really wondered if Géant did the right choice to open its stores under this brand name.To people who did not have any french education background, it is really hard to pronounce the word “Géant”, while also its translation into arabic is not really accurate phoenetically. Try to say in english “Jeeyan” or “Jyan”and this is what you get for the arabic word. | ||
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| In countries like Lebanon, Tunisia, Morocco and Algeria for sure the name has no problem because people mainly living in these countries had a french education, while in United Arab Emirates and Kindgom of Saudi Arabia, the problem is obvious. Géant already operates in these 6 mentioned countries and for sure the expansion plan is on the way in this part of the world and I mean North Africa, Gulf and Levant. | ||
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Géant translated into english is Giant.Another obstacle raised in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia with the presence of the Saudi chain of supermarkets Giant Stores owned by Al Muhaideb family. Known to be the biggest market in the Middle East, Saudi Arabian markets also includes other local chains such as Al Othaim & Panda, also international chains such as Carrefour & Géant. A rumor in town also says that the world #1 retailer, the american giant Wal-Mart have an office in KSA and is monitoring the market.
All Saudi nationals and mainly the largest ethnic groups come from an english education background, so the french name will be hard for them to pronounce and once they know its translation into english, they will try to find a way to differentiate it from the Saudi chain, maybe by adding another word to the initial name such as the “French Giant” |
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Is it acceptable that a huge retailer like Groupe Casino, do not pay attention that a one word translation might affect the image of the global brand and cause all this confusion on the short and long term?Maybe they still have the time to catch the mistake, if they dont, we won’t be far of seeing a new retail name raising from a mistake. |
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