A mate recently sent me a word he thought might interest me—genericide.
There are quite a few everyday words that you might not know started life as trademarks: cellophane, aspirin, trampoline and escalator. I came across the same phenomenon in a previous post with cafetière for a coffee plunger.
There is something quite ironic about this for marketers. They spend their working lives desperately trying to get people to recognise their brand name. Marketing academic David Aaker described the progression of brand awareness
RECOGNITION—we know the name when we see or hear it.
RECALL—we can retrieve it without prompting.
TOP OF MIND—the first brand we think of in a particular category.
BRAND DOMINANCE—the only brand we think of.
This is well-recognised marketing theory. But let’s look at what happens when marketing is too successful. I am calling it the ENTWISLE MODEL OF BRAND OVERSHOOT so that I can have my own management-speak box diagram and get a Ted Talk.
After brand dominance comes GENERICISATION where the brand name starts taking over from the product category (i.e. the process of becoming generic). In the past Hoover took over from vacuum cleaner even to the point of becoming a verb. Now we have Dyson edging it out.
Oakenfull and Gelb identified the danger—when consumers begin using a brand name as the product category label. Linguist Shawn Clankie looked at what happens to the word itself as a brand name migrates into ordinary language, including its transformation from a proper name into a common noun, adjective or even a verb.
This is where marketing success becomes a problem.
GENERICISATION—using the brand name for the product category.
However, the company may still own and vigorously defend its trademark. Velcro, Google and Hoover are familiar examples of brands negotiating this territory.
But genericisation can go too far. The trademark can become so widely used as the ordinary name for a type of product that it ceases to distinguish one manufacturer’s product from another and that makes it difficult to protect the trademark from other businesses.
GENERICIDE—brand has been killed by its own success.