Monday, September 10, 2007

Brands Become generic or genericized trademark

Its very common in India when one person speaks true pubic called him “Raja Harishchand”, When one become very humble or down to the earth, public like us called him “Gandhi ji” & when one donote something without any interest to someone public start calling him “Karna”.

Now here individual having such characteristics called as product name and these personalities are called as Brand name which symbolize these traits and when each of the trait replaced with following personalities in day to day life become generic brand name or genericized trademark.

It’s a achievement to be an innovator and serve the society with new invention but when this innovation or invention become generic brand name, it’s a biggest setback for brand and company too.

Genericized Trademark: When a brand name become colloquial or generic description for or synonomus with a particular class of product or service is called genericized trademark. list of genericized trademarks

Why It happened?

When a brand name is become so popular, huge market share & no competitor in market, then the product or service replaced with the name of that particular brand.

Lets look at Examples:

Xerox: Xerox launched its first photo copy machine it become huge success and slowly due to viral marketing or buzz, the name of photo state or copy was replaced with Xerox.

Band-aid: In 1921, J&J manufactured first bandage for normal cuts, to wrap burns etc named as band-aid but in later time this become bandage(genericized name) . Every one called up storekepper for band-aid no matters which company it is?

Kleenex: The word Kleenex is now commonly used to describe any soft facial tissue. However, Kleenex is the trademarked name of the soft facial tissue manufactured and sold by the Kimberly-Clark Corporation.

In India context:

Godrej Wardrobes: In Indian homes, marriages etc godrej wardrobes replaced the product name, in Indian families “godrej ke bina ladki ka dahej(dowry) in complete. Its very common in most of Indian families.

Sintex Plastic Tank: People in our country used this brand as generic product name in place of Plastic water tanks.

Amul Butter: Same genericized trademark happened with this brand also.

In Rural India:

Colgate: In our villages common people used to say “jara colgete le ana” means bring toothpaste where he replaced product name with brand name.


Limca : In india, whenever you asked old member of your family for cold drinks he/she come up with name of LIMCA; a generic brand name in elders mind. Its not similar to Xerox,Band-aid or Kleenex but Limca was on the same track.

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