Today the press in Catalonia has announced that from today there will be new cheap condoms for young people available in pharmacies - 3 pieces for € 1.50. Behind the initiative is the manufacturer Durex and the Catalan authorities, the Generalitat, and the products carry labels in both Spanish and Catalan.
What disturbs us, puck-import.com, slightly is that the Catalan youth secretary, Eugeni Villalbí, claims that it is the first time condoms are being sold with user instructions in Catalan. As readers of this blog will know, Puck Import distributes the Swedish quality condoms RFSU and, for more than a year by now, have we marketed them with labels in Catalan. While Durex offers one article number with Catalan text, we do so for all our models and that without any support from the Generalitat.
Several Catalan news services have today published these news with the same wording as they had received them in the press release, probably sent out directly from Durex. We consider that unfortunate, because a quick search on Google would have led the journalists to texts about our commitment to the Catalan language. We are therefore grateful that the Plataforma per la llengua ("the Platform for the (Catalan) language") already a year ago commented on our activities in their magazine, La Corbella, and confirmed that we sold the first commercial condoms labelled in Catalan.
In the end, Puck Import celebrates the fact that Durex is proud of its "first Catalan condom". For a small company like ours, the attention this creates around the topic is highly welcome. We now look forward to the multinational company's next step and assume that it will be in line with the Generaliat’s slogan: "La revolució dels petits gestos ha començat!" (the Revolution of Small Gestures Has Started).
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More or less the same text, but in Catalan.
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What the press says:
ElSingularDigital.cat, Vilaweb and 3cat24 (all in Catalan) repeat that Durex has launched the first condoms labelled in Catalan.
LaVanguardia (in Spanish but still the reference newspaper of Catalonia) write about the cheap condoms but without repeating that Durex would be the first to label in Catalan, in fact, they do not even mention the name of the condom brand.
Directe.cat underlines that also RFSU is sold labelled in Catalan and has a web-site in Catalan and Spanish, while the one of Durex is still only available in Spanish.
Avui mentions that these condoms are labelled in Catalan, but does not claim that it is the first time this happens.
RacóCatalà seems to, above all, interpret the campaign as an effort to promote the use of condoms labelled in Catalan and stresses that RFSU offered this long before Durex.
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2 comments:
Cheaper condoms. Very good news for safe (and safer) sex. (And as long as the quality is still reliable for those who choose to use them!)
Brett,
You're so right. For society as a whole it's great when quality condoms become cheaper. Still, I'd ask you to allow me - someone who has invested his savings in this business - to be a bit grumpy when the Spanish market leader gets a push forward by the public authorities. ;-)
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