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Russia stumbles into brand-name gaffe in Africa

It probably seemed a good idea at the time. But Russia’s attempt to create a joint gas venture with Nigeria could become one of the classic branding disasters — after the new company was named Nigaz.

The venture was agreed last week during a four-day trip to Africa by Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev. The deal between Russia’s Gazprom and Nigeria’s state oil company was supposed to show off the Kremlin’s growing interes t in Africa’s energy reserves.

Instead, the venture is now likely to be remembered for all the wrong reasons, as a PR blunder worse than Chevrolet’s Nova, which failed to sell in South America because it translated as “doesn’t go” in Spanish.

Alert users of Twitter first highlighted the unfortunate English connotations of Nigaz, which appeared to have eluded Medevedev’s Russian-speaking delegation. Writing on Monday, shunty 75 observed: “Nigaz is the name for the new Gazprom Nigeria venture. They need a new PR outfit. NO WAY!! Haha!!” Other twitterers also derided the name.

An article in Brand Republic pointed out the obvious: that the name has “rather different connotations” for English-speakers. It recalled other international branding mishaps, including the Ford Pinto, which in Brazil means small penis, and the Pepsi slogan “Come alive with the Pepsi generation”, which in Taiwan translates as “Pepsi will bring your ancestors back from the dead.” It is unclear why no one alerted Mr. Medvedev to the blunder. One possible explanation is that the offending word is still widely used in Russia. Nigaz plans to invest at least $2.5bn in oil and gas exploration, and to build refineries, pipelines and gas power stations in Nigeria. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2009

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