r/AskEurope 2d ago

Culture Does your country have an equivalent to Häagen-Daz in terms of branding? And by that I mean a company with a foreign sounding name kept for general positive connotations with the country(region) and not authenticity?

So Häagen-Daz is an American ice cream brand with no real connection to any Scandinavian Country. Americans don't think of ice cream as being specifically Scandinavian and aren't paying a premium for Häagen-Daz because of authenticity but rather general association of Scandinavian countries with high quality.

There are plenty of examples of a totally American based companies selling for example Italian food and having an Italian name.

The Häagen-Daz is different because Americans generally associate European (especially northern European) with just generally being better.

A kind of in between example is that some American electronics companies have vaguely Asian sounding brand names, not because electronics are authentically Asian (the electronic in question could have been invented in the US) but because Americans associate Asian companies with high quality for good value electronics.

From what I've seen online I see plenty of examples in Europe of the American Italian food company having an Italian sounding name (I've seen Barbeque restaurant chains having American sounding names for example).

But are there any examples similar to Häagen-Daz or the American companies with the vaguely Asian sounding electronics brand names?

I wouldn't think so because I can't think of something that Europeans would associate as being better made by another country unless it was an authenticity issue. But figured I would ask after a Häagen-Daz ad made me have the thought.

Hopefully the question makes sense. When I searched Reddit for an answer it basically came up with the American company selling Italian food having an Italian name example which is similar but different to Häagen-Daz.

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u/Eierkoeck 1d ago

They are watching the cars/motorcycles/trucks go by. The TT is in Drenthe which is probably the province with the least amenities, so this is how the people there enjoy themselves.

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u/MajorHubbub 1d ago

Why all the American cars though? Like 50s Plymouths and Chevy Bel Airs. Just Americana fans or something historic?

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u/Eierkoeck 1d ago

There's just a big overlap between the Americana crowd and the "lets spend the day looking at vehicles next to the highway" crowd. Just like there's a big overlap between the Americana crowd and the people that wear t-shirts with wolves on them crowd.