Day 376: The mystery of Jif

I'm marking a comeback after my 2 months away from Sweden with an extensively researched article about Jif. That'll regain any lost readers!

I was cleaning the other day (been away, shit gets dirty) and had the revelation that I was using Jif. It was a revelation because I use Cif in England all the time and had instinctively shopped for this particular product without taking any notice of the name.

In England, Jif changed to Cif in 2000 with a massive advertising campaign to make sure nobody stopped buying Cif just because they couldn't find Jif any more. I wanted to link to the incredibly patronising advert, which features several idiotic people "from the continent" failing to pronounce the letter J in Jif and then states that everyone in England now has to have Cif instead, but I can't find it. Instead, here's a description of the advert written by the company contracted to make the advert. It must have been all over the place and on the TV every five minutes, because it's been 14 years and I still remember every detail of the advert, right down to the stupid blonde woman saying "Khhhiiiif?? Khhiiiif??" while making a face like she had shit in her mouth.

Business news reports that the name change to Cif was overwhelmingly successful while popular opinion laments the change and wants Jif back. All that is irrelevant here, though, as the main thing I need explaining to me is this:

Why did Unilever change Jif to Cif in England, where J is a commonly occuring hard sound in the English language, and keep the name Jif in Scandinavia where the letter J is a much less common sound which has a sort of Y noise?

It's basically called Yif here. It is therefore pronounced in exactly the way the patronising advert told us NOT to. What the hell, Unilever. What. The. Hell.

Unilever are still, in 2014, making people shake their heads with their shitty advertising campaigns for Jif/ Cif/ Gif/ Fliff/ Pliff/ Handy Andy/ whatever it's called. Check it out! I never would have kept up with that particular current affair if I wasn't so vigilant in the shower, and that's a free life lesson for you all.

I'll leave you with this gem I found while looking for the advert. Vi ses!