Generic Branding.

There are a few people in my office with a handheld computer similar to the one pictured, and the vast majority refer to it as their "Palm Pilot". The only problem is that it's not a palm pilot. It's a "Pocket PC". In fact, there hasn't been a "Palm Pilot" on the market for several years.

This device is not just a little different to a Palm Pilot, it is remarkably different. It runs different software, it operates in a different way, it's manufactured by a different company. It is an entirely different product.

Of course, this is all quite academic. Hoover, Xerox, Elevator, Refrigerator, and Google were once entirely different products, but have all since been subsumed into the English language as placeholders for the concepts they represent. Corporations mostly love this sort of thing, as it gives their particular brand de-facto product placement every time the product is mentioned. Lucky them.

There are dangers here, of course, for both the consumer and the brand. For the consumer, there is a danger of product confusion. If one of my colleagues goes out to buy some "Palm Pilot" software, they'd be particularly disappointed when they discover that it won't run on their Pocket PC handheld.

The second (less obvious) danger is to the brand. If it becomes too generic, too commonly used, then it is no longer a brand, it's a noun. And no-one can sell a noun. When was the last time you shopped around for a couch made by "Couch Inc."?

Does this seem ridiculous? Sure. But remember, owning a Westinghouse Refrigerator would once have sounded as ridiculous as Googling on Yahoo.