This section was all about branding, from its history, usage, and meaning to what it has done to culture itself.
What I found most interesting in this portion was the term genericide and what it means.
The book says it is the term for when an owner of a brand loses control of the meaning, and the brand becomes a generic term.
The book uses Kleenex and Coke as examples for brands that the company no longer has control over. This was interesting to me because I do exactly this.
Whenever I see soda, I call it "coke". It doesn't matter if the carbonated beverage is actually a coke product, I refer to all carbonated soft drinks as "coke" as a generic term. It wasn't until a few years back that somebody pointed out that I was doing this.
I called it that because my mum has always called it that, asking me, "What kind of coke do you want?" as a generic question.
I always thought it strange how this happened, because now people think I'm strange if they catch me calling all soda "coke". To me, it feels natural and correct because for the longest time I didn't apply the term "coke" to anything more than carbonated soft drinks.
It is this idea of a company losing its control on their brand that amuses me. So much money is poured into maintaining brand integrity and updating/bolstering its image to the general public. When a brand becomes so successful it loses control of its own brand meaning, it must be incredibly frustrating for the owners.
In a way this shows how brands affect our culture, because corporate brands become our traditional lingo for certain things. This truly shows how pervasive the marketing and branding has been, as well as how successful.
So it's good and bad, because I'm not supportive of big companies (and thus like the idea of them losing control of something they tried so hard to hold) but at the same time it means they were very successful and managed to break into culture itself and set itself down in a more permanent way.
-Thomas Holland
Edit: I realized this was the wrong section to read, 100 pages off. So close.
You think they would be happy with their product product becoming a synonym for something. They are so persuasive that the first thing people think about when they hear pop is "coke". How could Coca-Cola ever go out of business with that going on?
ReplyDeleteExactly. But the problem is that people stop thinking that getting "coke" means buying from "Coca Cola". No amount of advertising puts the term coke back under their control, and people buy "coke" regardless of whether its theirs.
ReplyDeleteNot that they are going out of business, Coke and Pepsi each have about half the market share of soda ha.
I never called soda Coke, just for the record, :) I think this is because I was raised in a family where soda was a special treat (like for long weekends or for going to restaruants), and we didn't have it all the time. Now that I am older I find myself just calling whatever I want what it is, i.e. "I want a Mountain Dew, Root Beer, Dr. Pepper, etc."
DeleteAlso, Yeah, I have some great ideas, and we should partner up for Doug's next project thingy.
I'm sure few people do what I do/did, ha.
DeleteI think that using soda as a treat is a good practice health-wise, as a side comment.
You can email me through the WSU email or at Valentines_Artist@yahoo.com when the project is assigned for us to already have a line of communication open.