Gillette – Bad Packaging

Packaging is very important for brand, as well the linguistics and this is where sometimes some multinationals fail while choosing the right words or translating the exact meanings, but it gets worse when they write English words in another language and make it wrong.

This is the case for the below Gillette pack. A brand now owned by Procter & Gamble since few years.

1st, I don’t understand the need of Arabic language on a package sold in Europe. Maybe from cost side, some companies are trying to have multi-lingual packs to cut on the packaging and printing expenses.

On this package, the problem is the word “Blue” written in Arabic, even that the 3 letters are the right ones, but in Arabic you never write a text where the letters are separate, it is different from Latin letters. What is more absurd, that on the front, top left side “New” is written correctly and on the back, the full Arabic text is also written the right way.

It is really strange for a multinational with the size of P&G to make such a mistake, but still I don’t see any explanation from my side.

“Blue 3” is part of the product name and it is very crucial for its brand identity, as I said, in Europe maybe nobody will even notice this, but what about all the Arab countries where this product will be finding its place on the shelves?