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Why our product went viral in Brazil for the wrong reasons

dafacto.com

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Re: Why our product went viral in Brazil for the wrong reasons

#11

Post by soneca »

soneca wrote: post #8

Yes, the Gizmodo article is hilarious!! I saw it shared on my Facebook timeline a lot! For Gizmodo it is an absolute win - lots of sharing. For Rego, I am sure it is a short-term win. But at the long-term there are a lot of challenges to make the transition from novelty to consolidate, real value delivering app. My 2 cents would be, keep the branding as a purpousely funny. Rego is a funny bad word, but not one that a…

Just more 2 cents on this boring Saturday morning. If you launch it in portuguse and/or for Android, you should a great launch paying a tweet or post at https://twitter.com/kibeloco (they are very big here, and they are the funniest site by far). Another huge player on funny content is http://www.youtube.com/user/portadosfundos.

Just some tips if you decided to invest in this branding

Re: Why our product went viral in Brazil for the wrong reasons

#13

Post by speeder »

zdw wrote: post #7

So what is Orkut slang for in Portuguese?

Google handling of Orkut just suck. Personally the features on Orkut are much more interesting than the ones in Facebook, but Google never fixed issues that existed since the platform inception ( for example there are no edit button to fix your forum posts )

Re: Why our product went viral in Brazil for the wrong reasons

#14

Post by Kiro »

objclxt wrote: post #2

Since the article text itself doesn't mention exactly why the name is so bad - Rego, the name of the product, is slang for ass crack in Portuguese. I can sort of understand why you wouldn't want to put that in the post itself, but it's also a little annoying to have to watch a video to find out why it went viral.

I thought the same thing but the way it is explained in the video is hilarious.

Re: Why our product went viral in Brazil for the wrong reasons

#16

Post by alenart »

The video is currently not loading for me, so the below is just an observation on the linguistics of these situations not a troll to downgrade the humor contained herein.

This isn't the first time a brand has had to rethink its name to adjust to the local language. The Ford Pinto was re-dubbed when it entered Brazil because pinto in Portuguese is a word reserved for the male anatomy. It also happens the other way: the Nissan 350Z from the 80s was called the Fair Lady in Japan, which would likely never have resonated with its target demographic in the U.S.

Re: Why our product went viral in Brazil for the wrong reasons

#17

Post by davidkatz »

Amongst other things, this is a great lesson for how naming can affect mass market marketing.

As a product guy and general geek, I want to believe that naming doesn't matter. It's the product and the value it creates that counts. I'm increasingly learning that that's not entirely true. Having a great product is critical, but you also need to market it, and a name that evokes emotional responses helps.

Re: Why our product went viral in Brazil for the wrong reasons

#18

Post by rafski »

As someone who never understood the appeal of foursquare/gowalla kind of apps, I do like this one — saving locations just for myself and sharing only if I really want to. Well done using media attention for your benefit, you're handling the "controversy" well. Selling apps is a tough game and every user counts, good luck out there.

Re: Why our product went viral in Brazil for the wrong reasons

#19

Post by shocks »

objclxt wrote: post #2

Since the article text itself doesn't mention exactly why the name is so bad - Rego, the name of the product, is slang for ass crack in Portuguese. I can sort of understand why you wouldn't want to put that in the post itself, but it's also a little annoying to have to watch a video to find out why it went viral.

I feel like this comment ruins the joke.

Re: Why our product went viral in Brazil for the wrong reasons

#20

Post by makalumhenders »

Thanks everybody. Our first reaction was, "Oh what a disaster!" but then we thought, "Nothing we can do now, and it is pretty funny so let's just roll with it!" BTW, Rego is really being well received — it seems like a lot of people (us included!) needed something Gowalla-like but without the social part.
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