Business | Marketing missteps How do you pronounce Biemlfdlkk? The brands lost in translation As they race to go global, many Chinese companies are choosing new names A brand you’ll never forget Sep 11th 2025|SHANGHAI|3 min read Biemlfdlkk is a mouthful. It is not exactly clear how to enunciate the eight-consonant jumble in the Chinese golf-apparel brand’s English name. It is even hard to write. But the company is expanding overseas, recently acquiring two foreign brands. This was probably a factor that led it to ditching the odd string of letters it had operated under for 21 years. This year it is swapping the old name for one that is a bit more intelligible: Biemlofen. Chinese brands are moving into foreign markets as never before. The way they **are perceived **when they arrive depends not just on the quality of their product but also on their name. A few companies are already mastering foreign branding. Haidilao, a restaurant chain specialising in spicy soups, has started using the word Hi as a simplified name at its overseas shops. Pop Mart, the toy company that makes the sensational Labubu dolls, looks right at home in America or Europe. Shein, an online fashion firm, based its Chinese name, pronounced xi yin, on its English one (an abbreviation of SheInside). These are the few that are getting it right. Many others struggle. Take, for example, Mixue, a cold drinks and ice-cream chain that is opening thousands of shops outside China. The company’s name translates to “honey snow”, but instead of making use of that overseas it has employed the phonetic version of its Chinese name, which is not easy to pronounce. The name will limit the brand’s growth abroad, predicts Chris Pereira of iMpact, a consulting firm, since people will not know how to say it when recommending it to friends. Many Chinese companies chose ill-conceived foreign names decades ago and have simply stuck with them. Perhaps White Elephant, a Chinese battery brand that is becoming popular in Africa, should have stuck with its phonetic Chinese name. Chint, an electronics maker founded in 1984, chose an English name that faintly reflects its Chinese one but sounds closer to “chintzy”, American slang for cheaply made. Many firms try to turn their Chinese name into one that sounds Western, but end up with nonsense: Youngor, a fashion brand, is one example. And yet this is often preferable to experimenting with symbolism in a foreign tongue, as demonstrated by the Chinese sunglasses brand that named itself after the world’s most famous blind person, Helen Keller. Foreign-sounding names that provide international flair at home can be less helpful in overseas markets. Adolph, a Chinese shampoo-maker, might have convinced some Chinese people that it is German, but it may find the name does not help it sell products in Germany. Cracking the language and culture of any foreign market is tough. Western firms in China know this all too well. Peugeot, a French carmaker (owned by Stellantis, whose largest shareholder part-owns The Economist), has an unremarkable Chinese name when said in Mandarin, the national language. But in Cantonese, a southern dialect, the name Peugeot sounds unfortunately close to “bitch”.■ 商業｜行銷失誤：Biemlfdlkk 該怎麼唸？當品牌遇上翻譯困境在全球化的浪潮下，許多中國品牌正在積極走向海外。但名字選得好不好，往往會決定一個品牌在國際市場上能不能被記住。以中國的高爾夫服飾品牌 Biemlfdlkk 為例。這個名字光是拼寫就夠讓人頭痛，更別說要正確念出來了。經營了 21 年後，這家公司終於決定換掉這串八個子音拼湊出來的怪名字，改成稍微順口一點的 Biemlofen。這一決定，正好發生在他們併購了兩個海外品牌、積極拓展國際市場之後。不過，也不是所有中國品牌都在國際化命名上摔跤。像是火鍋連鎖海底撈，在海外乾脆簡化成「Hi」，讓外國顧客一看就懂。又或者是爆紅的玩具公司泡泡瑪特 Pop Mart，名字放在歐美市場完全沒有違和感。快時尚品牌 Shein 更是取巧，從英文「SheInside」簡化而來，中文名字「希音」也呼應了英文發音。相比之下，有些品牌就顯得吃力。比方說冷飲和冰淇淋連鎖蜜雪冰城。它的中文意思是「蜂蜜雪」，很有意境，但到了海外卻堅持使用「Mixue」這個拼音。結果外國人不僅難以發音，更難把這名字傳口碑。顧問公司 iMpact 的 Chris Pereira 就直言，這樣會限制品牌在國際市場的成長。還有一些公司，早年隨便挑了英文名字，結果一路用到現在。電池品牌白象 White Elephant，在非洲很受歡迎，但用「大象」的拼音可能更直白。電子公司正泰，在 1984 年創立時選了英文名 Chint，雖然勉強算呼應了中文，但聽起來卻和英文的「chintzy」（意指廉價的）很接近。服裝品牌 Youngor，名字雖然帶點西化的味道，但實際上毫無意義。還有更尷尬的例子。中國太陽眼鏡品牌居然取名 Helen Keller——就是那位最有名的盲人作家。至於洗髮精品牌 Adolph，或許在中國人眼裡帶點德國風格，但若真想在德國賣，恐怕只會引來誤會。其實這樣的挑戰，各國品牌在異地市場都會遇到。像法國車商 Peugeot（標致），中文名字在普通話裡沒什麼問題，但在廣東話裡，聽起來卻和「婊子」非常接近。這種文化與語言的差異，讓跨國行銷充滿了難題。所以說，走向世界光靠產品力還不夠，品牌名字能不能被外國人念對、記住，往往就是成敗的關鍵。 -- Hosting provided by SoundOn

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