Durex
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The brand Durex is used for a number of unrelated products around the world. Most commonly, Durex is the trademarked name for a range of condoms made by UK-based multinational SSL International.
The name, which the London Rubber Company trademarked in 1929, is a portmanteau of "Durability, Reliability, and Excellence".
Durex condoms represent around one quarter of the global market for prophylactic sheathes, manufacturing around one billion units per year in 17 factories worldwide. The Durex range includes nine varieties of latex condom and the Avanti condom, the first male condom made from polyurethane. Polyurethane condoms don't suffer from the "latex rot" problems associated with traditional condoms, and are suited for users who have an allergic reaction to latex.
Other brands
The trade name Durex is also used internationally for a number of unrelated products. A number of comedians, including Jasper Carrott, have written routines exploiting for comic effect the mixups caused by the reuse of the Durex name.
- In the USA and parts of Latin America, like Mexico and Brazil, Durex is a popular brand of adhesive tape, manufactured by 3M.
- Also in Mexico, Durex is a brand of socks.
- Durex Steel is a Canadian metal fabricator, now a division of ZCL Composites Inc.
- The Durex Corporation was an abrasives and adhesives conglomerate, run by a number of North American companies (including 3M) between 1920 and 1950. The corporation was dissolved in 1950, the US Supreme Court having found it to be an illegal combination under the Sherman Antitrust Act.
The case of the disparate Durex brands is one of the prime examples cited by international branding specialists for the need for multinational corporations to undertake extensive brand searches to ensure a proposed name doesn't have an unsuitable meaning or connotation in another culture or language.
External links
- Durex condoms website (http://www.durex.com)
- H2G2's page on Durex condoms (http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A414451)