Pocari Sweat

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Pocari Sweat (ポカリスエット Pokari Suetto) is a popular Japanese soft drink and sports drink, manufactured by Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. It was launched in 1980, and is now also available in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.

Pocari Sweat is a mild-tasting, relatively light, non-carbonated sweet beverage and is advertised as an "ion supply drink". It has a mild grapefruit flavor with little aftertaste. Ingredients listed are water, sugar, citric acid, trisodium citrate, sodium chloride, potassium chloride, calcium lactate, magnesium carbonate, and flavoring.[1] It is sold in aluminium cans, PET bottles, and as a powder for mixing with water.

Nomenclature

The reference to sweat in the name of the beverage tends to have a certain off-putting or humorous connotation for native English speakers. However, the name was chosen by the manufacturers originally for the purpose of marketing the product as a sports drink in Japan,[2] where people generally do not mentally translate names appearing in English and are therefore not bothered by the connotation. It was largely derived from the notion of what it is intended to supply to the drinker: all of the nutrients and electrolytes lost when sweating.[3][4] The first part of the name, Pocari, does not have any meaning; the word was coined for its light, bright sound.[5]

See also

  • Aquarius (a similar beverage manufactured by The Coca-Cola Company)
  • Calpis
  • Oronamin C Drink
  • Foreign branding
  • Cloud Nine (disambiguation) (a term which has some similar connotations in English to Pocari in Japanese, except that the idea in English is more of joy than of relief or calmness)
  • 100plus

References

  1. ↑ "Welcome to Pocari Sweat Website". Pocarisweat.com.ph. Retrieved 2012-11-09. 
  2. ↑ Global Business Languages, pp.18-19 Tracy L. Melin, Nina M. Ray, 2005
  3. ↑ Language Awareness: Use/Misuse of Loan-words in the English Language in Japan, Andrea Simon-Maeda
  4. ↑ Herbig, Paul A. (1998). Handbook of cross-cultural marketing. Binghamton, NY: International Business Press. p. 3. ISBN 0-7890-0154-3. 
  5. ↑ "Pocari Sweat Basic Q&A - Q&A [ Pocari Sweat ]". Pocarisweat.info. Retrieved 2012-11-09. 

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