Once a product hits the thrift store, it’s much too late to make corrections to the packaging. But perhaps this can serve as a cautionary lesson.

“Ntelligemt Hulahgop”?

I understand the need to find a unique name for your company and product, but some approaches to the problem are just wrong. That includes all of the approaches used here.

How exactly does one pronounce “ntelligemt”? I’m guessing the “n” is pronounced “in”. That’s fairly standard. But is that a hard or soft “g”? “gehmt” doesn’t exactly fall trippingly off the tongue, but “jehmt” isn’t an improvement. The soft “g” might work if it weren’t for the “m”, but we’re stuck with that.

Then there’s “hulahgop”. I’m sure whoever came up with the name wanted something to suggest “hula hoop” without actually violating Wham-O’s trademark. And, yeah, okay, a “G” looks like an “O”. But we’ve got a pronunciation problem here too. It’s not the “G” so much as the “H” that precedes it. “huhgahp”? “huhjahp”? Maybe we can say the “H” is silent; “hulagahp” almost works, and “hulajahp” is even better–as long as one ignores the ease with which it could be mispronounced as a well-known derogatory slang term.

Matters don’t get any better once we move past those names.

Who thought it was a good idea to break up the word “beautiful”. I don’t know about you, but I can only assume that Beau Tiful was Beau Brummel’s lesser-known brother.

And why the missing spaces in the tagline? “exercisemakes peoplemore beautiful” Is it supposed to convey a message? Other than “Nobody associated with the product has ever bothered to learn English”. That’s the message I get.

And it’s one that’s reinforced by “free adjustments”. I suspect they meant “freely adjustable”, but the way it’s phrased, it suggests I’ll need to take it to a shop to have the belt tightened or loosened to fit my waist–but at least the shop won’t charge me for the service.

Finally, there’s that block of text at the upper left. In case you can’t read it in the picture, what it says is:

Shock-absorbing

Massage contact 360

Surround massage

Wait, what? This is a massager? I thought it was exercise equipment.

But I guess it makes sense. Doesn’t everyone like a vigorous stomach massage while jumping up and down? I know that would help me lose weight: five minutes and I’ll be getting rid of everything I’ve eaten for the past week.