Faking it?

I suppose if a car was called a Rolls Boyce, it couldn’t really be described as a fake. But it would be a bit sneaky nevertheless, giving it a name so similar to the real thing and hoping that the shopper would be conned, or perhaps subconsciously enticed by a label so close to the genuine article. The subterfuge, of course, doesn’t stand a chance of working in that case but there are certainly more subtle attempts which may have better luck.

There’s a camera manufacturer in Asia which calls itself ‘konka’, with the two parts of the ‘k’ just managing to touch. If you didn’t probe closely, like with a microscope, it could even look like ‘konica’, a Japanese company that used to make cameras and film. It’s an amazing coincidence that konka chose a name which was so similar.

But why anyone would want to mimic Great Wall wine is surely one of the oddest mysteries in marketing. It’s actually not a bad tipple, but aping it is akin to pretending your company is Ryan Air and expecting the connotation to have customers handing over their dosh in droves. Greet Wall is simply an awful concoction, although Garnet Wall is unique, unlike any other wine I’ve drunk; it surely presents a danger to a person’s internal organs and central nervous system on a par with cyanide mixed with bleach.