Pocari Sweat
Product type | Sports drink |
---|---|
Produced by | Otsuka Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd. |
Country | Japan |
Introduced | 1980 |
Markets | East Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East |
Pocari Sweat (ポカリスエット Pokari Suetto) is a Japanese 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. An artificially sweetened version with reduced sugar called Pocari Sweat Ion Water (ポカリスエット イオンウォーター Pokari Suetto Ion Wōtā) is also sold.[2]
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,[3] where English words are used differently. 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.[4][5] The first part of the name, Pocari, does not have any meaning; the word was coined for its light, bright sound.[6]
Lunar Dream Capsule project
On 15 May 2014, Pocari Sweat started a project to send a "dream capsule" to the Moon. The capsule will have the same shape as a Pocari Sweat can and will be filled with Pocari Sweat powder. It was going be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket in October 2015[7] however it is now delayed with a target goal of Summer 2016.[8] Once it arrives, Pocari Sweat will be the first commercial product advertised on the Moon.[9]
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
- ↑ "Welcome to Pocari Sweat Website". Pocarisweat.com.ph. Retrieved 2012-11-09.
- ↑ "価格.com - 大塚製薬 ポカリスエット イオンウォーター レビュー評価・評判" (in Japanese). Retrieved 31 March 2014.
- ↑ Global Business Languages, pp.18-19 Tracy L. Melin, Nina M. Ray, 2005
- ↑ Language Awareness: Use/Misuse of Loan-words in the English Language in Japan, Andrea Simon-Maeda
- ↑ Herbig, Paul A. (1998). Handbook of cross-cultural marketing. Binghamton, NY: International Business Press. p. 3. ISBN 0-7890-0154-3.
- ↑ "Pocari Sweat Basic Q&A - Q&A [ Pocari Sweat ]". Pocarisweat.info. Retrieved 2012-11-09.
- ↑ Sports Drink Set for Moon Mission; But, Why?, devicemag.com
- ↑
- ↑ Pocari Sweat is putting the first ever ad on the lunar surface, techinasia.com
External links
Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pocari Sweat. |
- Otsuka's Pocari Sweat Site (Japanese and English)