It's a wacky and wordy Wednesday, my friends. Notice that I didn't capitalize "wacky" or "wordy" because I'm not yet prepared to make this a regular feature. It's tempting, because I can already hear myself welcoming you to another edition WWW or maybe 3-Dub. But no, I'm not ready for that level of commitment. After all, we'll always have Hump Day, won't we?
I am going to talk about some words today though. Specifically, a group of words that I'm sure many of you have thought about. I don't even know what to call them though. We'll get to that later though. First, it's time for some back-story. While working at the university after graduation, even though I was thoroughly enjoying it, I knew that it was most likely not where I would be spending the rest of my working days. I had always said that I liked the field of advertising, but I didn't actually know anything about it. I thought about being really nerdy and buying some text books and learning the basics myself, but instead I found a class through the UCSB Extension.
It was called "Principles of Marketing," and it was taught by someone with some real life experience. I learned one major lesson from the class: I was so glad to be out of school. It reminded me almost immediately how little I missed studying, taking test, and writing papers. The class was ok, but I didn't really learn much at all. The instructor seemed to run out of lesson plan ideas and brought someone in to play the guitar in one of the later classes. Kinda strange, don't ya think?
In any case, what I remember most from the class (besides the guitar guy) was a video that the instructor showed us with a profile on the Rollerblade company. In it, a high-up executive started talking about how everyone was using "Rollerblades" to describe any pair inline skates. I thought he was going to say how great that was that their product had clearly taken over the whole industry. Instead though, he said that it's difficult because if people think that all inline skates are Rollerblades, then they won't seek out their brand in particular. They want to be known as the best of all inline skates, not just a general term for them.
That made a lot of sense to me, and those are the types of words I'm going to talk about today: ones that are actually trademarked brand names but are generally used for all products in their genre. What should we call these? Dispropered Nouns? I have no idea. Suggest away, gentle readers.
There are a few that come to mind immediately for me. First, Kleenex is pretty universally used for "facial tissues," right? Band Aid absolutely has the market cornered. How many times have you asked someone, "Excuse me, do you have an adhesive bandage?" I'm pretty sure Frisbee is a brand name, which makes me wonder what the generic ones are even called. Plastic flying discs? That has to be frustrating to the company. Unless they launch a campaign that says, "If it doesn't say 'Frisbee' it's not the real thing!" then things will stay as they are. And seriously, at this point their product probably isn't noticeably better than any generic competitor. Same with the Hula Hoop, if that's also a brand name.
What else is there? Xerox seems like it's lost a little of its universality to me. While I probably would've referred to most things as "Xerox machines" a few years back, they're more specialized now. I'll think of "copiers" or "laser printers" instead of jumping to the Xerox umbrella. One thing that's cool about that one though is that it became a verb. Xeroxing, like Rollerblading, Googling, and even Tivo-ing has caused the brand names to have an even greater impact on their respective industries. (Should Tivo be on this list? I feel like DVR is getting more widely known, so probably not.)
What am I missing? Time to consult los internets. Aha! I found a great site:
http://www.prairienet.org/~rkrause/brands.html
Wow. They're called "American Proprietary Eponyms" according to this site. And there are some great ones on here that I didn't think about (and some I don't agree with).
I didn't realize that Cola was trademarked as part of the Coca Cola Company. That's a big one. Popsicle is another that I never associated with a particular brand but use across the category. Wite-Out I should've thought of on my own, because that's a perfect example. Ooh, Styrofoam is a trademark of Dow Chemical Company. Very interesting (at least to me). Escalator is a brand name? I'm guilty on all counts with that one. There are a few more on there that totally blow my mind, so you should check it out.
I am going to talk about some words today though. Specifically, a group of words that I'm sure many of you have thought about. I don't even know what to call them though. We'll get to that later though. First, it's time for some back-story. While working at the university after graduation, even though I was thoroughly enjoying it, I knew that it was most likely not where I would be spending the rest of my working days. I had always said that I liked the field of advertising, but I didn't actually know anything about it. I thought about being really nerdy and buying some text books and learning the basics myself, but instead I found a class through the UCSB Extension.
It was called "Principles of Marketing," and it was taught by someone with some real life experience. I learned one major lesson from the class: I was so glad to be out of school. It reminded me almost immediately how little I missed studying, taking test, and writing papers. The class was ok, but I didn't really learn much at all. The instructor seemed to run out of lesson plan ideas and brought someone in to play the guitar in one of the later classes. Kinda strange, don't ya think?
In any case, what I remember most from the class (besides the guitar guy) was a video that the instructor showed us with a profile on the Rollerblade company. In it, a high-up executive started talking about how everyone was using "Rollerblades" to describe any pair inline skates. I thought he was going to say how great that was that their product had clearly taken over the whole industry. Instead though, he said that it's difficult because if people think that all inline skates are Rollerblades, then they won't seek out their brand in particular. They want to be known as the best of all inline skates, not just a general term for them.
That made a lot of sense to me, and those are the types of words I'm going to talk about today: ones that are actually trademarked brand names but are generally used for all products in their genre. What should we call these? Dispropered Nouns? I have no idea. Suggest away, gentle readers.
There are a few that come to mind immediately for me. First, Kleenex is pretty universally used for "facial tissues," right? Band Aid absolutely has the market cornered. How many times have you asked someone, "Excuse me, do you have an adhesive bandage?" I'm pretty sure Frisbee is a brand name, which makes me wonder what the generic ones are even called. Plastic flying discs? That has to be frustrating to the company. Unless they launch a campaign that says, "If it doesn't say 'Frisbee' it's not the real thing!" then things will stay as they are. And seriously, at this point their product probably isn't noticeably better than any generic competitor. Same with the Hula Hoop, if that's also a brand name.
What else is there? Xerox seems like it's lost a little of its universality to me. While I probably would've referred to most things as "Xerox machines" a few years back, they're more specialized now. I'll think of "copiers" or "laser printers" instead of jumping to the Xerox umbrella. One thing that's cool about that one though is that it became a verb. Xeroxing, like Rollerblading, Googling, and even Tivo-ing has caused the brand names to have an even greater impact on their respective industries. (Should Tivo be on this list? I feel like DVR is getting more widely known, so probably not.)
What am I missing? Time to consult los internets. Aha! I found a great site:
http://www.prairienet.org/~rkrause/brands.html
Wow. They're called "American Proprietary Eponyms" according to this site. And there are some great ones on here that I didn't think about (and some I don't agree with).
I didn't realize that Cola was trademarked as part of the Coca Cola Company. That's a big one. Popsicle is another that I never associated with a particular brand but use across the category. Wite-Out I should've thought of on my own, because that's a perfect example. Ooh, Styrofoam is a trademark of Dow Chemical Company. Very interesting (at least to me). Escalator is a brand name? I'm guilty on all counts with that one. There are a few more on there that totally blow my mind, so you should check it out.
Then there are a few that I don't agree with. I don't use "Listerine" to speak for all mouthwashes. I don't use "Jeep" for all vehicles of that nature either. "Twizzlers?" I pretty much just use that to describe...Twizzlers. Same goes for Kool-Aid; otherwise it's just punch to me.
Just thought of another: Jacuzzi. Totally. Ok, that's it for now. I'm sure there are more out there that we all use, so if any come to mind, please let me know. I'm really enjoying this, by the way. Also, check out that site, because I'd like to hear which ones surprise you and which ones you disagree with. Have a great day, gentle readers, and watch out for the inline skaters throwing flying plastic discs while blowing their noses with facial tissues. Oh they're out there alright.
8 comments:
How about Q-Tips? I cannot ever recall seaching for a "cotton swab".
Chapstick. Though we both use Blistex, we refer to it as chapstick....
How about Windex?
You're all so wise. If you weren't already my family members, I'd be mailing you invitations to join.
tampax
Hey anonymous,
Thanks for the comment. At first, I wasn't so sure about "tampax," because I couldn't hear someone saying, "Hey, do you have a tampax I can use?" To me, they'd be saying "tampon" in place of it. However, my wife (who knows more about such things) agrees with your assessment, and I learned long ago that she's always right. Thanks again for writing in.
Scotch tape?
Hey Pop,
That one's on the site, and I think it fits. If I asked someone for tape, and they asked, "What kind?" I would specify by either saying "Scotch tape" or possibly "invisible tape." Were you on the fence with that one?
Post a Comment