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Jägermeister

German brands forced to remove umlaut from name to help pronunciation

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By The Drum Team, Editorial

August 30, 2013 | 1 min read

German brands such as Dürr and Jägermeister have faced issues from customers in countries such as China, as the umlaut — the dotted accent added to the letters a, o, or u —leads to pronunciation problems.

Mathias Christen, a spokesman for Dürr, which makes products for the car industry, told the German news agency dpa: “The internet era has brought a new style of writing.”

The company has now removed the umlaut from its name, while the change has even spread to people’s surnames, with the Telegraph reporting that Josef Käser, now chief executive of Siemens, came back from a stint in America as Joe Kaeser.

In China, Jägermeister has rebranded itself as "Ye Ge" – meaning 'wild guy', although it notes that in other markets, it is known by shortened brand name Jäger.

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