While they deliberated, local shopkeepers devised their own solutions, anxious to capitalise on demand for the fizzy black elixir. They had at their disposal some 200 characters capable of representing the requisite syllables. The most felicitous and therefore widely used permutations literally meant 'Bite the wax tadpole' and 'Wax flattened mare'. Neither sent quite the right message back to Atlanta. So the marketing team was forced to compromise.
Eventually by substituting the sound 'ler' for the more ambitious 'lah', they hit on a sentence pronounced roughly as desired that also made some kind of sense. The official character representation of the most famous brand on Earth now translates as 'Let the mouth rejoice!'
Lest Pepsi be tempted to snigger, the company should remember its own marketing tribulations in the Far East. 'Bring your ancestors back to life with Pepsi!', one Taiwanese campaign inadvertently exhorted.
Useless patents - 'The Spider Ladder'
GB patent no. 2,272,154 does just what it says on the tin. It's a spider-sized ladder that helps spiders to clamber up the side of a bath. Held in place by a suction pad, the 'spider ladder' offers our eight-legged friends the perfect escape from a watery grave.
