Really, how many times a day do we "GOOGLE" something to find out information? Or how often do we promise to "FACEBOOK" a friend? Not sure if it is mainstream yet, but I personally also frequently say that I "WIKIPEDIA'ED" a concept ... Funny how natural these words sound and what specific a meaning they carry. Yet, they all started out as names of companies who created a product that became an integral part of our lives, so integral that their names got perpetuated in our language. For us, consumers, using "google" as a verb is just an easy way to say "perform an Internet search on something." But for Google and its competitors, this fact has a huge influence on their business. Both Yahoo! and Bing would kill to have their brands used as words for electronic search. Every time we say we should "google" stuff, we condition ourselves and everybody around us which search engine to use to find out the needed information. That is why Google comes out as unshaken market leader over and over again: it's not only about a superior product any more, it's about unrivaled brand visibility and recall. And that's why no matter which kind of a super-duper product Google's competitors ever unveil, they'll always be in for a tough ride in their attempts to dethrone the king.
Some other brands from the top of my head that have succeeded in penetrating into the language are "Post-its", “Q-tips,” and "iPods": does anyone even say "sticky notes", “cotton swabs” and "MP3 players" anymore?! In Eastern Europe, similar cases of perpetuated brands are Xerox and Scotch: the word "xerox" is synonymous to a "carbon copy" and the word "scotch" stands for "clear duct tape" in colloquial language. This is a real gift of destiny for these companies as the levels of constant advertisement their brands get for free through WOM (word of mouth) cannot be beaten by even the most expensive ad campaigns.
Other alternatives to full-word brand names are signature parts of the brand name that take on a specific meaning in everyday language. Some cases that come to mind are the "i-" popularized by Apple products and the "Mc-" made famous by McDonald's. However, in these particular examples, the association the brand gets is controversial and not necessarily the one a brand wants. This is especially clear for McDonald's: derivative terms like "McJob" and "McMansion" have a rather negative connotation to them, which reflects badly on the brand that served as a parent word for these newly formed terms. With Apple the case is not so clear cut: the nation is split on their attitudes towards the company – there are true Apple lovers who evangelize about iPads and iPhones and their associations with the famous "i-" may be only positive, but there is also the other half of the nation whose attitudes towards the "i-" are not that great. For instance, I once heard a friend say, "I'll invent a special kind of beer and I'll make it overpriced, overglorified, and will sell it to rich snobs. I already have a perfect name for it - the iBeer". While this is open for discussion, I feel like it is not exactly the image Apple wants to be associated with…
So the bottomline is: brand names that become terms of general usage are a powerful vehicle for companies who own these brands, as they get an unlimited amount of FREE, voluntary, and credible ads for their product at all times. However, this association had better be a good one because once the word crawls into Webster Dictionary, it is set in stone. Well, unless, you make it a point to find every single copy ever sold and black out your brand name with your sharpie… I mean, um, a thin marker :)
Nice article. I found your article after looking at the recent decision in France of not allowing radio and television to use the words Twitter or Facebook. iPod is really bad. I actually say "no" it is called Sandisk.
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