A few months back, I read a great article by brand identity expert Nora D. Richardson. Her thesis was that some brand names are victims of their own success. They become so well known that people use them to describe a product class. Think Aspirin, Xerox, Kleenex, pantyhose, and even Google. (Google is arguable, Ms. Richardson notes, because large numbers of searchers go to Google and nowhere else. Still, Google has publicly discouraged its generic use.)
These brand names are freely and generically used—often by their owners, who should know better. They are verbified and sometimes associated with negatives. Remember political commentators referring to Ronald Reagan as the “Teflon” president, because bad stuff just didn’t seem to stick to him?
Avoiding Genericide
You should avoid genericide like the plague. I used to work in sales for Dictaphone—now a division of Nuance Communications, and that company was famous for taking brand misusers to court in a heartbeat. And I once knew a woman who ran Casini’s, a specialty apparel shop in D.C. Not surprisingly, she received a classic cease-and-desist letter from designer Oleg Cassini’s attorneys, who claimed that she was diluting and therefore damaging his brand.
So, how do you prevent genericide? In my opinion, Ms. Richardson’s two most important tips are 1) never use your brand name generically and 2) follow your brand name with a description of it what it is or does. One thing is for sure, though, you need to be consistent and diligent guarding your brand name use or the courts won’t rule in your favor.
Have you ever worked for a company that had problems protecting its brand? What was its response? And, what examples of brand genericide can you come up with?
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