Bland Name Product / Real Life

• Late for the Sky Productions, a board game manufacturer in Ohio, used bland name products based on Hasbro's Monopoly product brand.
• Because the name Super Bowl (along with "Super Sunday") is trademarked by the NFL, advertisers, businesses, and newspapers are strictly forbidden (well, not forbidden, but the NFL is so powerful and litigious it's not worth putting up a fight) to use the name in any promotions or advertisements. However, it is not illegal to use such terms as "Big Game Sunday", "Big Football Game", etc. in campaigns centered on the Super Bowl.
  • One ad for snack foods (or beer?) played with this, by having one character give out charades clues for "Super Bowl" and the others cluelessly guessing things like "Blooper Mole".
  • The Colbert Report got around this by calling it the "Superb Owl".
  • In a truly moustache-twirling display of villainous greed, the NFL actually attempted to trademark "The Big Game", giving Disney a bit of competition for the honor of having the unluckiest PR department in the business world. Luckily for every ad, movie, TV show, and piece of literature to use that term, the NFL's request was turned down, due in part to intervention from Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley, whose annual football game has been known as The Big Game since about 1900. The NFL didn't even exist until 1920.
• Manufacturers of some counterfeit products make small changes to names, logos, and other trademarks. Some examples can be found on Engadget's "Keepin' It Real Fake" series. For example, a "Game Bay" cartridge made by "Nintende(TN)".
  • Many companies that manufacture unlicensed accessories for the Nintendo Wii mark them as being for the "Wü".
• From The '50s through The '70s, it was common for cars to have names spelled out in separate chromed diecast letters along the hood, trunklid or fenders, bolted or riveted in place. Urban legend had it that these would sometimes be misspelled by the factory workers. Documented evidence does exist of one division's nameplate being placed on one part of the car and a different one on another (such as "Buick" on the grill and "Oldsmobile" on the trunk lid). Most common of all was their letters falling off, leaving the driver with a Fo_d, C_evrolet, or even Do_g_.
  • It's also quite common for people to alter the badging themselves even in modern times. Toyota trucks especially get this treatment, with the large TOYOTA lettering on the tailgate being altered to either show TOY or even YO.
    • Those people have weird ideas about what it means to be a man.
  • A variant of this is to add letters. For example, if you have VW Bora, acquire a T from a VW Passat from the same generation, and you have a VW Borat. Also, there are Dacia Duster owners in Germany who get adhesive letters to write "ZAPPEN" over the "DUSTER" label ("zappenduster" = "pitch black dark").
• There's a whole market for imaginary products in the form of 3D assets that people purchase, especially for use with the Poser home animation program. While there's no real problem with using something trademarked, many trademarked logos are also copyrighted. Of course, at the same time, people tend to want things based on stuff they're familiar with, either from popular fiction or from the real world, and so this leads to "almost-but-not-quite" products, often with "Pose" or "Poser" in the name, many of which can be found at Renderosity, ShareCG, TurboSquid and elsewhere.
• KFG◊, which would be Kentucky Fried.....uh...Goat? Groundhog? Gerbil? Gorilla? Gecko? Gazelle? Goldfish? Grizzly? Guppy? Galapagos Tortoise? ^note (The letter "G" sounds exactly the same as the Chinese word for "Chicken".)
  • Or, KLG◊ (Kuai Le Ji, a Taiwanese fried chicken chain)
  • There was once a whole site dedicated to bad rip-offs of KFC. The attempts are so bad that the author's reactions range from mildly sarcastic to outright spittle-flecked ranting. As the author noted, the basic rules for a KFC ripoff seem to be "name of a US state, preferably Southern (though one of the enshrined restaurants was called California Chicken), or a word associated with the South (like Dixie), or something vaguely American" + "fried chicken" + red-and-white (and sometimes blue) color scheme. The site doesn't mention it, but the name done up in a nice bold italic decorative serif font on the sign seems to be a requirement as well.
  • "[letter]FC" is so common a format for the names of unlicensed restaurants that KFC was able to create an entire magazine ad showcasing one for every letter of the alphabet (except K, of course). "Guys, we're flattered."
  • And Pizza Huh. Huh?
    • In Blackpool, there is (or was) a "Pizza Hat". Even the British get into the bland-name fun. (See also Webcomics above.) Even more unbelievable is that a "Pizza Hat" has also cropped up in Florida, USA of all places. No word if they're related.
    • We are also proud to boast Kansas Fried Chicken.
    • Szolnok, Hungary has a restaurant called "Pizza 6". In Hungarian, the number 6 is spelled hat and pronounced like "hut".
    • Recife, Brazil had a burger place called "Suburbway" with the same green/yellow colour scheme. 3 months later, the company also known as "underground path" sued them and they had to change name or face legal action.
  • Bucksstar Coffee.◊
  • The Kennedy Fried Chicken (quasi-)chain, common in inner-city neighborhoods across the US East Coast (it's widely considered, perhaps unfairly, "hood" chicken) and commonly run by very patriotic immigrants from Afghanistan or elsewhere in South Asia, sports a predominantly-red color scheme. It's a rather loose chain, so individual restaurants can and do take different names; most commonly, if they aren't "Kennedy Fried Chicken" they call themselves "Crown Fried Chicken," but a Washington, DC location has "Kantouri Fried Chicken."
  • In Mexico, just over the California border, is a restaurant called Kentucky Fried Buches. (Buches are fried chicken necks. Yum.)
  • Could be Kentucky Fried Gallus.
  • Indonesia's California Fried Chicken zigzags this. It is a wholly Indonesian-owned fried chicken joint whose name rhymes with KFC, making it seem like an obvious ripoff. However, it actually began as the local subsidiary of a mostly-defunct American fast food joint called Pioneer Chicken, based in California (hence its name). CFC cut its ties with Pioneer Chicken in 1989, and has since carried on as an independent franchisor of fried chicken joints, with hundreds of outlets currently operating in Indonesia. So, technically speaking, it's not a KFC ripoff (though many people still accuse it as such).
• There are a lot of these in open-air markets and bazaars in the Philippines, which tend to feature a lot of knockoffs from China, Taiwan, and other neighboring nations. A Power Pop Girls towel, a Jurassic Wars set (a WWII soldier inexplicably packaged with a pink plastic velociraptor), and Guchi handbags among several others.
• Coby was a legitimate electronics brand that sold its products in big-name retail stores and even had its products featured in their ads. That said, take a gander at its logo. Look familiar?
• The film studio The Asylum specializes in making low-budget movies that vaguely resemble recent blockbusters (dubbed Mockbusters by film critics). Some examples include Pirates of Treasure Island, Snakes on a Train, The Da Vinci Treasure, and Transmorphers.
• Sierra Mist sounds for all the world like it would be a knockoff of Mountain Dew. "Sierra" recalls the Sierra Nevada mountain range in the Western US (and sierra literally means "mountain range" in Spanish), while "dew" and "mist" are both types of surface condensation. But it turns out that they're both made by Pepsi, and Sierra Mist is a lemon-lime soda (so, really, a knockoff of Sprite or 7up).
  • As of 2023, Sierra Mist has been discontinued and replaced with "Starry".
• There's a legitimate electronics company whose name sounds like an example: Magnasonic. And it makes total sense if you know Latin: "Magna" = "large or great", while "sonic" = "sound". "Pan" (as in "Panasonic") = "all", and "vox" (as in "Magnavox") = ..."voice"? Maybe?
  • There's one that's a blatant rip-off of NEC: A legitimate electronics company called MEC (Malaysian Electronics Corporation). And weirder brands like Panashiba and Tobishi.
  • Enercell batteries sold at RadioShack sound like a cross between Energizer and Duracell.
  • Palsonic is another one, as well as Pensonic.
• This commercial from March 25, 1980 is for a product actually called "Arthritis Pain Formula", with extremely-generic packaging and promotion. Later spots like this and this were clearer that it was from the maker of Anacin. Oh, and it's still around today (albeit in far less generic packaging).
• Many games on pirate NES multicarts have their titles changed or removed.
• Occasionally when franchise stores close down and are bought up by smaller businesses, the new store ends up with a suspiciously similar name, especially if they're selling a similar product. This seems to be as much about saving money by only making minor alterations to a sign as it is momentarily confusing people into stopping in. Not Fooling Anybody offers up such examples as a Mister Donut becoming Master Donut, A Texaco becoming Exaco (yes, they actually just ripped the T off the signs), and most nonsensically, a Baskin Robbins becoming Basket Rabbit.
  • Zen Rfanklib.
• Exidy (early arcade game developer) → Exide (battery brand).
• Stuart Ashen comes across these all the time. The most notorious examples are the POP Station, which later got a spiritual successor in the PCP Station, the Neo Double Games (DS) and the "Chintendo" Vii, a bland redesign of the Wii. It should be noted that neither comes close to matching the feature set of its brand-name counterpart.
  • There's also the infamous Penesamig batteries that have been mentioned a few times since their initial on-screen appearance.
• Ligao is a cheap Chinese ripoff of LEGO.
• Dr Pepper knockoffs almost always contain "Dr." or "Mr." in their name.
  • When Coca-Cola introduced their Pepper knockoff, they tried to avert this by calling it Peppo, but got sued for trademark infringement and went with the name Mr. Pibb instead. In the 2000s they rebranded it as Pibb Xtra.
  • Kibo once sampled more than a dozen of these in a "Fake Dr Pepper Roundup," in the process discovering a Bland Name manufacturer (Store 24) of things like "Dr. Zeppa," "Lemon Zup" and "other products that may have been named by the late Bill Gaines."
• The Maths Quest Prelim Course textbook (an Australian maths textbook) has references to GOI insurance, J.L. Booker, and Roy Black real estate, just to name a few.
• The HiPhone. Take a wild guess what it's a rip-off of, and which country made the rip-off.
  • There is also a BlackBerry knockoff called Blaokborry.
  • PearOS was a Linux distribution intended to be a knock-off of Mac OS X. Apple was quick to purchase the company and fire the entire staff to ax the threat before it could bud. The money from the purchase was reinvested on ElementaryOS.
• Pocky has many imitations. Here's one◊. The exception to the rule is Rocky, officially renamed by Glico because they were afraid that Pocky was too close to the Pidgin slang of a particular woman anatomy in certain Asian countries, and Mikado, because they were afraid that Pocky would bring up memories of a dreadful disease in the UK. They were probably unaware of the game though, which makes it doubly hilarious.
• Parody sticker brand Wacky Packages do this for a living, which got them in trouble with Morton Salt over their parody "Moron Salt" (but that's not for here).
• The Earl Hays Press, a company that sells props for Live-Action TV series (it seems mostly stuff that can be produced by printing), does this for some of its products, such as the magazines Playpen and Earth Geographic or several of the food packages.
• The discount grocery store chain Aldi has a lot of this in their stores. An example is "Cinnamon Crunch Squares" (Cinnamon Toast Crunch).
  • To the point it can be a surreal experience walking around an Aldi: almost every product looks almost, but not exactly, like the brand-leader product. The effect is that everything is a bit... off.
• In the Philippines again, there's the McDonald's combined with the local competitor to produce McDolibee. And it was a barbecue stand!
• Colombia has many examples.
  • In Bogotá, Surtidora de Aves was a well-known chain of fried chicken fast food restaurants. In the mid-'90s there were around 600 small business which copied the name and logo of the company (Surtiaves, Surtiaves 22, Surtidora de Aves de la 22, Suriaves, Surtidorado de Aves 22...). This effectively drove the company to change the name to "Compañía del Sabor".
• Hunky Dorys crisps received a knockoff called Okey Dokeys.
• You can buy a Polex watch and then modify the P a little bit if you want.
• After the fall of Gaddafi, many businesses unofficially sporting Western-oriented brands have popped up in Libya. (For example, Uncle Kentucky Fried Chicken, sometimes spelled Kentaki.) The reason is that even though the civil war ended, international companies are still wary about doing business in Libya due to the uncertain political climate.
• Egypt seems to have a renamed copy of most branded alcoholic drinks (though the contents tend to be either "dark spirit", "clear spirit" or "beer")... Becardoi (strapline: Heart Good Rom!), Gordoons Gin and Johnny Waler to name but a few.
• The town of Zilwaukee, Michigan, located just north of Saginaw, got its name in a deliberate attempt to get people to confuse it with Milwaukee, Wisconsin and settle in Michigan instead.
• Vaping paraphernalia seller Veppo has a flavor of e-liquid called "My Burro," a spoof of the Marlboro cigarette brand.
• "Burger Queen" really did exist at one point.
• During The Golden Age of Video Games, some bootlegged arcade games got this treatment, including (but not limited to) "Xevios", "Frog", "Penta" (a knockoff of Pengo), "Masao"^note Player 2 was "Kohgi" (sic; pronounced "Koji"), his supposed "brother"., "Zig Zag", "Moon Ranger" (a Moon Patrol knockoff) and "Gallag".
• Due to sanctions placed on Iran since the Ayatollah came to power, there have been a number of noteworthy knockoffs of American restaurants, including Pizza Hat, ZFC, and Mash Donald's.
• Behold, the Nanica Smitch! It comes with no surprise that when the discovery of the ripoff was posted to the internet for the world to see, a flood of comments containing the NANI?!? meme ensued.^note Especially funny if you realize that the brand is actually Gratuitous Japanese for "What is (a) Smitch?", suggesting that the person who came up with the brand was fluent in both English and Japanese and suggested it as a Take That! to the clonemakers.
• Some keyboardists take black duct tape and cover the brand and model names on their instruments completely. Others get more creative and use it (or sometimes other means) to change the spelling. For example, The Dresden Dolls' frontwoman Amanda Palmer modified the Kurzweil brand name on her digital piano to "Kurtweill". Roland has sometimes been turned into "Poland", then there is the occasional Nord Lead that became a "Nerd Lead", not to mention what funny things can be done with Yamaha.
• There are quite a few budget motels called Motel 7, many of them obviously former Motel 6 locations with their signs changed.

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